Jonathan Lethem Quotes

To the resentment that hides inside love, to the loneliness that hides among companions.

Zelmo was nearly bellowing by the time he raised his glass to the tables center. 'To the human heart!' Diners at other tables glanced to see what was the matter.

Eso es muy superficial.- No se puede ser profundo sin superficie.

Destroy the traces. I’d never tried to do that. Instead I’d lived in their midst for thirty years, oblivious, a blind man fancying himself invisible.

How’s it feel to be a worthless jumbo diddly-ass puppetool?

I guess they needed a maze in Japan, where everything's neat and tidy. In America everybody's already wandering around lost.

I jotted the name down mentally on that tattered notepad I call a memory. The pen skipped.

I'm learning to hate the sound of my own voice.

Il guaritore mi aveva detto che ero stato saggio a rivolgermi a lui per tempo, spiegandomi che troppa gente afflitta da singhiozzi cronici ricorre all'agopuntura quando è all'ultima spiaggia. Avrebbe...

Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master. That is to say, most artists are converted to art by art itself.

Mrs. Neverbody’s Recipe for Making Crocodile Tears To a slice of hanky-panky Add some artificial cranky. Moisten well with canned boo-hoo. Flavor with a spoof or two. Drip this slowly—as it falls Roll...

The big Nazi cat went on raking up thread-loops from my trousers, seemingly intent on single-handedly reinventing Velcro.

The invisible are always so resolutely invisible, until you see them.

The lowliest European functionary—a border inspector, say—dressed immaculately, and furnished even a cubicle to lend an impression of respectability. A truly wealthy man, like Stolarsky, pronounced hi...

The revving heart of my hopefulness, kicked into gear anew, is the most precious thing about me, I refuse to vilify it.

The speaker was stringy and angular, his blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, his plaid workman's shirtsleeves rolled up around his pale biceps. Journalism major, I guessed.

They got stoneder and stoneder and quit talking.

Vierte amor en las heridas.

Exemplified the dull rigidity of Singapore’s old colonial fantasies about itself.

A simple, elegant game. Like riding a bicycle, once you’ve learned you can hardly fail to pick it up again, that is unless the brakes are out of order.