As much as I revere great writing, and am still humbled by it, literary activities are no longer esoteric to me. When I read a great novel - something that I could never have written myself - I'm still looking at it a little bit like a technician. Jonathan Lethem More Quotes by Jonathan Lethem More Quotes From Jonathan Lethem I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me. Jonathan Lethem bored writing fiction Insomnia is a variant of Tourette's--the waking brain races, sampling the world after the world has turned away, touching it everywhere, refusing to settle, to join the collective nod. The insomniac brain is a sort of conspiracy theorist as well, believing too much in its own paranoiac importance--as though if it were to blink, then doze, the world might be overrun by some encroaching calamity, which its obsessive musings are somehow fending off. Jonathan Lethem race insomnia believe Someday I would change my name to Shut Up and save everybody a lot of time. Jonathan Lethem someday shut-up names I don't want to indulge myself in the luxury of writing beautiful paragraphs just for the sake of making beautiful writing. That doesn't interest me. I want everything to be essential. Jonathan Lethem luxury writing beautiful What age is a black boy when he learns he's scary? Jonathan Lethem black scary boys I want what we all want," said Carl. "To move certain parts of the interior of myself into the exterior world, to see if they can be embraced. Jonathan Lethem want world moving I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human world. Jonathan Lethem cafes laptops world I have no one to blame for the construction for myself, of course, but I'm always surprised and slightly sulky when I realizeВ people are buying the whole thing. Jonathan Lethem sulky buying people Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit. Jonathan Lethem fantastic kind writing My inner chemistry had been hijacked by a mad scientist, who poured the fizzy, volatile contents of my heart from a test tube marked SOBER REALITY into another labeled SUNNY DELUSION, and back again, faster and faster, until the floor of my life was slick with spillage. Jonathan Lethem mad heart reality I've always been passionately in love with movies, to such a degree that even as a young person of about nineteen or twenty I thought maybe I would try to become a film director. The reason I didn't do it was because I felt I didn't have the right personality. At that time in my life, I was mortally shy. Jonathan Lethem twenties personality trying I'm a serial deconstructor of my own authority in certain areas. Jonathan Lethem serials certain authority All paths lead nowhere; choose one with heart... Jonathan Lethem path heart Art is about eliminating almost everything in order to focus on the thing that you need to talk about. Jonathan Lethem focus order art I'm a firm believer that there are no rules in art. Every trajectory is different. Jonathan Lethem firm different art What's beautiful about art is that it circumscribes a space, a physical and mental space. If you try to put the entire world into every page, you turn out chaos. Jonathan Lethem space beautiful art Yet I'm making a book and I'm going to care immensely about what words get bound in the pages, and I want the object to look good. I won't believe in it and it won't be real to me until there's a finished book I can hold. Jonathan Lethem real believe book To the resentment that hides inside love, to the loneliness that hides among companions. Jonathan Lethem companion resentment loneliness I guess they needed a maze in Japan, where everything's neat and tidy. In America everybody's already wandering around lost. Jonathan Lethem neat-and-tidy japan america Every artist has limits. No one can do everything. It's impossible. Jonathan Lethem limits artist impossible
