278 Quotes by Jonathan Lethem

I’m not planning what I listen to, except when I think the music can guide me to some emotional place I want to be reminded of.

It wasn’t for children, seventh grade. You could read the stress of even entering the building in the postures of the teachers, the security guards. Nobody could relax in such a racial and hormonal disaster area.

I’m learning to hate the sound of my own voice.

I’ve had the odd good luck of starting slowly and building gradually, something few writers are allowed anymore. As a result I’ve seen each of my books called the breakthrough. And each was, in its way.

I keep one simple rule that I only move in one direction – I write the book straight through from beginning to end. By following time’s arrow, I keep myself sane.

I turned myself into a vinyl hawk, scouring record shops for out-of-print LPs, studying them with Talmudic intensity. The music I loved would all be dug out of studio archives and put onto CD within a few years, but then it was still scratchy and moldy and entirely my own.

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.

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

I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I’m part of the human world.