The best Quotes by Jonathan Lethem

You can't be deep without a surface.

'I want what we all want,' said Carl. 'To move certain parts of the interior of myself into the exterior world, to see if they can be embraced.'

Listen to me. I’m shy. I’m not stupid. I can’t meet people’s eyes. I don’t know if you understand what that’s like. There’s a whole world going on around me, I’m aware of that. It’s not because I don’t want to look at you, Lucinda. It’s that I don’t want to be seen.

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

Someday I'd change my name to Shut Up and save everybody a lot of time.

Consensual reality is both fragile and elastic, and it heals like the skin of a bubble.

Enough of this. Does every conversation with you have to be the director's cut?

How strange it began to seem that cars have bodies that never are supposed to touch, a disaster if they do.

There is nothing Tourettic about the New York City subways.

I'm always serious. That's the tragedy of my life.

Waves, sky, trees, Essrog - I was off the page now, away from the grammar of skyscrapers and pavement.

Prince's music calmed me as much as masturbation or a cheeseburger.

The wind was picking up off the ocean now and the whole coastal scene had a bleak, abandoned look, as though Maine in November really belonged to the ragged gulls who wheeled over the sun.

Power is knowing that you can do whatever you want, and not one person can stop you.

When someone isn’t seen for what they truly are, that’s a very dangerous thing.

Okay, listen. I got something wrong with me. That’s the first thing to know. I twitch and shout a lot. It makes me look like a damn freak show. But inside my head is an even bigger mess. I can’t stop twisting things around, words and sounds especially. I have to keep playing with them until they come out right.

He’s the one who taught me how to use my head, turn it into a strength. He gave me a place in this crappy world, until I screwed up.

Maine - you can spit on Canada from here!

Walk until the darkness is a memory, and you become the sun on the next traveler's horizon.