Waves, sky, trees, Essrog - I was off the page now, away from the grammar of skyscrapers and pavement. Jonathan Lethem More Quotes by Jonathan Lethem More Quotes From Jonathan Lethem Good films demand to be looked at several times in order to be observed completely. Jonathan Lethem demand film order With a book you can read the same paragraph four times. You can go back to page 21 when you're on page 300. You can't do that with film. It just charges ahead. Jonathan Lethem four pages book Novelists get to direct the perfect films. We get to cast every part. We dress the set exactly as we wish. Jonathan Lethem novelists wish perfect One of the things that novels have tended not to concentrate on over the centuries is the fact that people read books. Jonathan Lethem book facts people No matter how enormous a novel may become, the physical act of reading determines that there's no way it can become a communal experience. To read is intimate. It's almost masturbatory. Jonathan Lethem reading matter may I believe that written stories will continue to survive because they answer an essential human need. I think movies might disappear before the novel disappears, because the novel is really one of the only places in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy. Jonathan Lethem two believe thinking Once you fall into habits, I think, you're dead as an artist. You have to challenge yourself and never rest on your laurels, never think about what you've done in the past. Jonathan Lethem artist past fall I want to write books that can be read a hundred years from now, and readers wouldn't be bogged down by irrelevant details. Jonathan Lethem writing book years I'm not a sociologist, and the novel has often concerned itself with sociology. It's one of the generating forces that's made fiction interesting to people. But that's not my concern. I'm interested in psychology. And also certain philosophical questions about the world. Jonathan Lethem philosophical people interesting By removing the stories from the morass of things that surround us, I'm hoping to achieve some kind of purer approach to emotional life. Jonathan Lethem emotional kind stories Being blocked, being uncertain, sitting there not knowing, waiting, abiding with it: this is the work. If you don't have the tolerance for that you're in great trouble. If you want to call it a writer's block... that doesn't seem a very useful name for that kind of abiding that I think is the essence of the work. Jonathan Lethem block essence thinking I don't write about anything I don't love even if that love sometimes gets all screwed up and tormented. Jonathan Lethem screwed-up writing sometimes I hate libraries for the way they put stickers on things. I don't approve of folding over pages, or of writing in books. God, forget scissors - that's beyond the pale. Jonathan Lethem hate writing book The computer is the way I'm making books, but I still think about the physical properties. I visualize the length of a book, the proportions of a book, in material terms. Jonathan Lethem book way thinking I don't have a lot of paper in my immediate work environment, except when I'm doing things like checking the godforsaken proofs. Jonathan Lethem proof environment paper Making books has always felt very connected to my bookselling experience, that of wanting to draw people's attention to things that I liked, to shape things that I liked into new shapes. Jonathan Lethem attention book people Reading and writing are the same thing; it's just one's the more active and the other's the more passive. They flow into each other. Jonathan Lethem flow reading writing I've been an advocate against the view of the writer as a partitioned genius hanging in conceptual space, or up on a mountain, a bringer of Promethean fire, some unique transmission that comes out of nowhere. I prefer the opposite view - that writers come from somewhere. They read things, and they think about them, and they incorporate other people's thoughts. Jonathan Lethem unique fire thinking I prefer old books and find them more relevant. I dislike new books. It's like drinking wine that's not ready. Jonathan Lethem wine drinking book I suppose in a way most of my characters are non-consumers, not terribly interested in all the little baubles and artifacts of contemporary life. Jonathan Lethem littles character way
