278 Quotes by Jonathan Lethem

One of the things that novels have tended not to concentrate on over the centuries is the fact that people read books.

I'm a firm believer that there are no rules in art. Every trajectory is different.

Novelists get to direct the perfect films. We get to cast every part. We dress the set exactly as we wish.

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

I don't write about anything I don't love even if that love sometimes gets all screwed up and tormented.

Art is about eliminating almost everything in order to focus on the thing that you need to talk about.

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.

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.

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