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
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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.
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We do high heels, and people know us for that, but the idea of wearing a flat from day to night feels special.
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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.
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I don't get star-struck at all.
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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.
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No man can be ideally successful until he has found his place. Like a locomotive he is strong on the track, but weak anywhere else.
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The trade magazine and all was banned in my house. The first time I read a film magazine was when I was 18.
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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.
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You can really taste the difference between a shop-bought and a good homemade mayo.
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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.
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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.
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In writing a series of stories about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies.
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I like Disney Channel a lot, and I also like to watch 'Full House.'
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I don't have time to listen to anybody's music. I'm making it, you know.
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National partition is a sorrow that touches all Koreans, but for me it is brought to the fore by unimaginable personal suffering.
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Even before I competed in the Olympics, I always wanted to write a book.
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There are so many elements that make a good film. You need a great director who's driving it.
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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.
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I strongly believe that good books are the best home accessory.
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Hollywood can be a really tough environment for anyone trying to make a living. Unfortunately for actors of color, namely Asian Americans, opportunities have been and remain substantially limited. One place this is not the case is on 'Hawaii Five-0,' where we have three Asian American series regulars and a landscape rich with diversity.
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I couldn't do country, with all due respect to all country music artists. My parents dressed me up with a cowboy hat and we'd go to the rodeo when I was younger and it traumatized me for life.
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No matter how painful something is, you have to take it. I saw that in both my parents.
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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.
