Jonathan Lethem Quotes
Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit.
Quotes to Explore
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Sometimes things in life take a few years to digest, and they find their way into the work later on. Sometimes I'm writing about things from eight years ago-they just took a long time to distill and come out in the appropriate way.
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We're more interested in someone writing a really great answer that's going to be read by thousands or tens of thousands of people over the next few years as it stays on Quora and as it gets distributed on the Internet.
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I took English courses in college, but I don't have an English degree. I have a degree in economics.
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The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.
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I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you used to, you're writing better songs maybe than you used to, but to me it's just the journey.
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I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off... As my friend Julius Lester says, 'A picture book is the essence of an experience.'
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There is no question that photography has played a major role in the environmental movement.
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When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories.
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I actually run a non-profit where one of the main objectives is to branch out and get a new audience for the theater. Just because the writing is so good and nothing is more effective than seeing something live and happening right in front of your face, so I definitely want to continue to pursue that.
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I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.
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As a storyteller, when you're writing a movie and when you're directing, you want to keep people entertained. That's the whole point, right? It has to be entertaining.
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Why should Scotland be stopped from suggesting to the English people that we join a new union under new terms? Let's not try to dominate one another. Let's be a collection, like being in the pub with a kitty. When we vote in Scotland, we vote one way, but the other country votes another way and we always end up with what they vote for.
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Special-interest magazines are dangerous places for writers to start out in because the writing quickly falls into a routine and people are likely to find themselves artistically exhausted when they want to work on something of their own.
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The limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer. The souls that have reached this point are truly the heart of the Church.
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There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
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I came to the U.S. in 1994 to learn English and go to business school, but I took only a few business courses at the State University of New York at Albany and didn't finish.
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When I'm writing books, something weird happens; and the result is the books contain a large amount of what you could call 'supernaturalism.' As a writer, I find I need that to explain the world I'm writing about.
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I'm so damn boring. I like reading and writing and making coffee. And walking. Barry Jenkins likes long walks.
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The nice thing about writing at home is that it's almost as though I'm doing it already. I get out of bed thinking of my work, and I don't have to go anywhere to do it.
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2015 was, like, packed from January. 2016 is simultaneously open and packed - but I'm trying to keep 2016 open as possible so I can do weird, crazy, kooky stuff.
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The sage never seems to know his own merits, for only by not noticing them can you call others' attention to them.
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An important part of leadership is being able to hold two things in your mind at once: Dealing with the reality, whatever it may be, and focus on hope for the future. Any leader helping an organization through challenges needs to be able to do both.
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Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit.
