Jonathan Lethem

I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#fiction #i #learned #me #parts

I never take any notes or draw charts or make elaborate diagrams, but I hold an image of the shape of a book in my head and work from that mental hologram. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#book #charts #diagrams #draw #elaborate

I plan less and less. It's a great benefit of writing lots, that you get good at holding long narratives in your head like a virtual space. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#get #good #great #head #holding

I try not to become too regular an addict of any one subculture. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#any #become #i #regular #subculture

I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human world. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#human world #i #i can #laptop #part

I'd excluded New York from my writing, and then I came back and I fell in love with it all over again. The energy comes from an absence, that yearning for New York when you are not there. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#again #back #came #comes #energy

I'd have been a filmmaker or a cartoonist or something else which extended from the visual arts into the making of narratives if I hadn't been able to shift into fiction. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#arts #been #cartoonist #else #extended

I've never related to the work geek at all-it sounds much more horrible than nerd. Like a freak biting a chicken's head off in a sideshow. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#chicken #freak #geek #head #horrible

Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#english #fantastic #kind #summit #translation

It was good while it was good. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#while