Music still sort of hangs up there in the sky for me as this thing that moves me so much, but I can't really make it. It's like a car I can't drive. Jonathan Lethem More Quotes by Jonathan Lethem More Quotes From Jonathan Lethem Apologies aren't something you want to get in the habit of practicing in the mirror Jonathan Lethem apology mirrors want ...Don't rupture another's illusion unless you're positive the alternative you offer is more worthwhile than that from which you're wrenching them. Interrogate your solipsism: Does it offer any better a home than the delusions you're reaching to shatter? Jonathan Lethem alternatives doe home I never have been a musician; I'm not actually capable. Because I can't even pretend to acquire the gift, all of my first feelings about art are still attached to music. I look at it yearningly, I look at it wonderingly. I behold it from afar, as something unattainable, something outside of myself, from which I can take nourishment, but I can't domesticate and master. Jonathan Lethem musician feelings art Nerds are just deep, and neurotic, fans. Needy fans. We're all nerds, on one subject or another. Jonathan Lethem needy nerd fans The more film I watch, the more John Ford looks like a giant. His politics aren't so good, and you have to learn to accept John Wayne as an actor, but he's a poet in black and white. Jonathan Lethem black-and-white giants watches The book is openly a kind of spiritual autobiography, but the trick is that on any other level it's a kind of insane collage of fragments of memory. Jonathan Lethem spiritual memories book It's impossible to overstate how my relationship to music forms a preserve for the esoteric or even spiritual aspect of my relationship to cultural stuff, to human expressivity... it's a safe enclosure. Jonathan Lethem safe spiritual stuff Apparently Brooklyn needn't always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan.... Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self. Jonathan Lethem brooklyn manhattan self As a child growing up in pre-gentrification Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, I went everywhere by bicycle. My bike was in many ways the key to my neighborhood, which, at the time, was Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. This was in the 60s and 70s, before all the white people and restaurants. I really can't underscore boldly enough the fact that I grew up in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, before it was gentrified. You could get mugged! Jonathan Lethem growing-up white children I grew up with an artist father, and my parents' friends were also mainly artists or writers, so he connects what I do with his example. Jonathan Lethem parent artist father I try to write every day. I don't beat myself up about word counts, or how many hours are ticking by on the clock before I'm allowed to go and do something else. I just try to keep a hand in and work every single day, even if there are other demands or I'm on a book tour or have the flu or something, because then I keep my unconscious engaged with the book. Then I'm always a little bit writing, no matter what else I'm doing. Jonathan Lethem writing book hands I've never related to the work geek at all-it sounds much more horrible than nerd. Like a freak biting a chicken's head off in a sideshow. Jonathan Lethem biting nerd sound Comics? Honestly, that's more a matter of nostalgia for me. I think most of that energy has gone to my love of literature, and my love of film... Jonathan Lethem energy matter thinking I try not to become too regular an addict of any one subculture. Jonathan Lethem subculture addiction trying Yes! I'm the slowest comic-book writer on Earth. Jonathan Lethem comic-book earth book It was only as I wrote about fear that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then. Jonathan Lethem access path feelings I can't bear the silent ringing in my skull. Jonathan Lethem skulls bears writing Writing is a private discipline, in a field of companions. Jonathan Lethem discipline fields writing I’ve always been uninterested in boundaries or quarantines between tastes and types, between mediums and genres. Jonathan Lethem quarantine taste boundaries What's lucky about my career in general is that I stumbled into what every writer most wants. Not repeating myself and doing strange things has become my trademark. Jonathan Lethem lucky careers want
