278 Quotes by Jonathan Lethem

What age is a black boy when he learns he’s scary?

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.

In the sea of words, the in print is foam, surf bubbles riding the top. And it’s a dark sea, and deep, where divers need lights on their helmets and would perish at the lower depths.

Artists freeze themselves into these weird postures that are meant to be impressive and involving, then they fling them out into the world like Polaroids, and then they move on. And I’m stuck in this intense relationship to the Polaroid.

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

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.

I want to write books that can be read a hundred years from now, and readers wouldn’t be bogged down by irrelevant details.

Teenage life – possibly adult life too is all about what you want and can’t have. And then about what you receive and misuse.

But the day I can’t shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I’m washed up for keeps.