I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.
Jonathan LethemBeing 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 LethemI definitely care about how the concept of New York punk was constructed, and why it mattered. But I wasn't gonna doร that. Partly because I'm not a great journalist...
Jonathan LethemI 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 LethemThe 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 LethemListen to me. Iโm shy. Iโm not stupid. I canโt meet peopleโs eyes. I donโt know if you understand what thatโs like. Thereโs a whole world going on around me, Iโm aware of that. Itโs not because I donโt want to look at you, Lucinda. Itโs that I donโt want to be seen.
Jonathan Lethem