Jonathan Lethem

As much as I care about historical context - I'm very eager to read a really great historical account.

— Jonathan Lethem

To the resentment that hides inside love, to the loneliness that hides among companions.

— Jonathan Lethem

Every book is a kind of experiment in doing something that feels impossible.

— Jonathan Lethem

There's never any percentage in being ahead of your time.

— Jonathan Lethem

Every artist has limits. No one can do everything. It's impossible.

— Jonathan Lethem

“Enough of this. Does every conversation with you have to be the director's cut? Get out of the car.”

— Jonathan Lethem

“Yeah, maybe you look a little less familiar yourself.”

— Jonathan Lethem

“A superhero spliced criminals from victims. In Gowanus things tended to be more mixed up.”

— Jonathan Lethem

“We were in a middle space then, in a cone of white, father and son moving forward at a certain speed. Side…

— Jonathan Lethem

It's impossible to overstate how my relationship to music forms a preserve for the esoteric or even spiritual aspect of my relationship…

— Jonathan Lethem

When people call something "original," 9 out of 10 times they just don't know the references or original sources involved.

— Jonathan Lethem

What's beautiful about art is that it circumscribes a space, a physical and mental space. If you try to put the entire…

— Jonathan Lethem

I've had the odd good luck of starting slowly and building gradually, something few writers are allowed anymore. As a result I've…

— Jonathan Lethem

By removing the stories from the morass of things that surround us, I'm hoping to achieve some kind of purer approach to…

— Jonathan Lethem

Once you fall into habits, I think, you're dead as an artist. You have to challenge yourself and never rest on your…

— Jonathan Lethem

“Of all records, Chase, Some Girls! It was in a clutch of the most horrendous crap, J. Geils Band, Sniff 'n' the…

— Jonathan Lethem

“The earth itself was unchangeable, the endless tracts of sand and water and pavement. It was the people, the perturbable madmen who…

— Jonathan Lethem

“I‘ve always agreed with the view that — with science fiction — its predictive powers were the least important or least relevant…

— Jonathan Lethem

I've been an advocate against the view of the writer as a partitioned genius hanging in conceptual space, or up on a…

— Jonathan Lethem

You discovered yourself and what really mattered only after you passed through the lens of the fairy tale, imposed on every human…

— Jonathan Lethem

“Mingus Rude, Arthur Lomb, Gabriel Stern and Tim Vandertooth, even Aaron K. Doily: Dylan never met anyone who wasn't about to change…

— Jonathan Lethem

“Matthew and Lucinda felt at the exact edge of their lives, feeling them close, closer, as near at hand as yet elusive…

— Jonathan Lethem

As a child growing up in pre-gentrification Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, I went everywhere by bicycle. My bike was in many ways the…

— Jonathan Lethem

“Anyway, it struck me now in a different light, as being yet another bit of personal meaning which had ben taken from…

— Jonathan Lethem

Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I'm a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues,…

— Jonathan Lethem

“By trying to export myself into a place that didn't fully exist I asked works of art to bear my expectation that…

— Jonathan Lethem

“I've learned not to trust what I see on television.”

— Jonathan Lethem

what exactly is postmodernism, except modernism without the anxiety?

— Jonathan Lethem

There's something about the rhythms of language that correspond to the rhythms of our own bodies.

— Jonathan Lethem

Waves, sky, trees, Essrog - I was off the page now, away from the grammar of skyscrapers and pavement.

— Jonathan Lethem

My heart, to put it more simply, got nostalgic for the present. Always a bad sign.

— Jonathan Lethem

“I jotted the name down mentally on that tattered notepad I call a memory. The pen skipped.”

— Jonathan Lethem

Someday I would change my name to Shut Up and save everybody a lot of time.

— Jonathan Lethem

“I raised that kid like I was running an egg-and-spoon race through a minefield, and he was the egg.”

— Jonathan Lethem

In my third novel there is an actual black hole that swallows everything you love.

— Jonathan Lethem

The key to mostly anything is pretending your first time *isn't*.

— Jonathan Lethem

I don't paint anymore. I haven't since I abandoned it at 19, in order to begin writing seriously.

— Jonathan Lethem

“There is nothing Tourettic about the New York City subways.”

— Jonathan Lethem

I had an all-Fear of Music iPod, just versions of the 11 songs from the record. No other songs allowed.

— Jonathan Lethem

“I’d forgotten my identity as the world’s most pathetic superhero, become a Californian instead. ”

— Jonathan Lethem