Jonathan Lethem Quotes
The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals.
Quotes to Explore
-
I have to keep reminding myself: If you give your life to God, he doesn't promise you happiness and that everything will go well. But he does promise you peace. You can have peace and joy, even in bad circumstances.
-
We do high heels, and people know us for that, but the idea of wearing a flat from day to night feels special.
-
I think the kind of unexpected I really love is when you open books and the actual way of writing is different and interesting. Like reading Virginia Woolf for the first time or Lawrence Durrell for the first time.
-
I don't get star-struck at all.
-
The French are pretty thin-skinned. The few times I mentioned a French writer in 'City Boy,' the relatives would ring up in high dudgeon. I once wrote a mocking review of Marguerite Duras in the 'New York Review of Books,' and good friends of mine in France got very angry.
-
The trade magazine and all was banned in my house. The first time I read a film magazine was when I was 18.
-
I hate to witness animals in captivity - or see circus elephants paraded down the streets. When animals are caged, it's a loss of what they are.
-
You can really taste the difference between a shop-bought and a good homemade mayo.
-
I have a condition called Aspergers Syndrome, which is like a mild form of autism It means I don't interact properly in certain social situations.
-
I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic. A Buick radiator grille is as much a political statement as a Rolls Royce radiator grille, one enshrining a machine aesthetic driven by a populist optimism, the other enshrining a hierarchical and exclusive social order.
-
In writing a series of stories about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies.
-
I like Disney Channel a lot, and I also like to watch 'Full House.'
-
I don't have time to listen to anybody's music. I'm making it, you know.
-
National partition is a sorrow that touches all Koreans, but for me it is brought to the fore by unimaginable personal suffering.
-
There are so many elements that make a good film. You need a great director who's driving it.
-
Being an actor, imitating to the point of inhabiting the lives of others, may simply be a way of continuing to do what I learned to do as a boy - to travel, mentally and physically.
-
Human experience depends on everything that can influence states of the human brain, ranging from changes in our genome to changes in the global economy.
-
I think that sometimes you can be an example of what to do and what not to do, and I think most of the time I'm an example of what not to do.
-
I did a show with Tori Kelly, and it was really cool that I got to meet her. She has always been a huge inspiration of mine, and I'm obsessed with her voice, so it was great to get to talk to her about the industry. The best advice she gave me was to just be myself.
-
The talking shows are like free jazz. I'm just gonna go out there and blow with the idea of keeping it streamlined and not wasting time. It's wild. And it's a great thing when you see a performer really able to.
-
My hero when I was 14 was Sonny Liston. No matter what kinds of problems you were having with your parents or at school, whatever, Sonny Liston would go and knock guys out, and that made it all right.
-
At the age of 12, my parents gave me a chemistry set for Christmas, and experimentation soon became a consuming passion in my life.
-
I was a good 30 pounds overweight throughout high school, and it wasn't until I was going away to college that I really wanted to make sure I was doing everything possible to feel as confident as I could.
-
The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals.
