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I Hate Libraries For The Way They Put Stickers On Things. I Don't Approve Of Folding Over Pages, Or Of Writing In Books. God, Forget Scissors - That's Beyond The Pale.

-Jonathan Lethem

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I Hate Libraries For

Jonathan Lethem

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I Hate Libraries For The Way They Put Stickers On Things. I Don't Approve Of Folding Over Pages, Or Of Writing In Books. God, Forget Scissors - That's Beyond The Pale.

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Life Is Fundamentally Up For Grabs

The Less You Offer, The More Readers Are Forced To Bring The World To Life With Their Own Visual Imaginings. I Personally Hate An Illustration Of A Character On A Jacket Of A Book. I Never Want To Have Someone Show Me What The Character Really Looks Like - Or What Some Artist Has Decided The Character Really Looks Like - Because It Always Looks Wrong To Me. I Realize That I Prefer To Kind Of Meet The Text Halfway And Offer A Lot Of Visual Collaborations From My Own Imaginative Response To The Sentences.

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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.

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Being Blocked, Being Uncertain, Sitting There Not Knowing, Waiting, Abiding With It: This Is The Work. If You Don't Have The Tolerance For That You're In Great Trouble. If You Want To Call It A Writer's Block... That Doesn't Seem A Very Useful Name For That Kind Of Abiding That I Think Is The Essence Of The Work.

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Black And White

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Target Audience

I Hate Libraries For The Way They Put Stickers On Things. I Don't Approve Of Folding Over Pages, Or Of Writing In Books. God, Forget Scissors - That's Beyond The Pale.

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To The Resentment That Hides Inside Love, To The Loneliness That Hides Among Companions.

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Context Is Everything. Dress Me Up And See. I'm A Carnival Barker, An Auctioneer, A Downtown Performance Artist, A Speaker In Tongues, A Senator Drunk On Filibuster. I've Got Tourette's. My Mouth Won't Quit, Though Mostly I Whisper Or Subvocalize Like I'm Reading Aloud, My Adam's Apple Bobbing, Jaw Muscle Beating Like A Miniature Heart Under My Cheek, The Noise Suppressed, The Words Escaping Silently, Mere Ghosts Of Themselves, Husks Of Empty Breath And Tone.

Consensual Reality Is Both Fragile And Elastic, And It Heals Like The Skin Of A Bubble.

I'm A Firm Believer That There Are No Rules In Art. Every Trajectory Is Different.

I Believe That Written Stories Will Continue To Survive Because They Answer An Essential Human Need. I Think Movies Might Disappear Before The Novel Disappears, Because The Novel Is Really One Of The Only Places In The World Where Two Strangers Can Meet On Terms Of Absolute Intimacy.

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But The Day I Can't Shrug Off A Twinge Of Self-pity, Is The Day I'm Washed Up For Keeps.

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.

I'm A Serial Deconstructor Of My Own Authority In Certain Areas.

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I Hate Feeling Too Complacent When I Write. I Like To Be Solving New Problems.

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I've Had The Odd Good Luck Of Starting Slowly And Building Gradually, Something Few Writers Are Allowed Anymore. As A Result I've Seen Each Of My Books Called The Breakthrough. And Each Was, In Its Way.

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What's Lucky About My Career In General Is That I Stumbled Into What Every Writer Most Wants. Not Repeating Myself And Doing Strange Things Has Become My Trademark.

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I Try To Write Every Day. I Don't Beat Myself Up About Word Counts, Or How Many Hours Are Ticking By On The Clock Before I'm Allowed To Go And Do Something Else. I Just Try To Keep A Hand In And Work Every Single Day, Even If There Are Other Demands Or I'm On A Book Tour Or Have The Flu Or Something, Because Then I Keep My Unconscious Engaged With The Book. Then I'm Always A Little Bit Writing, No Matter What Else I'm Doing.

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Someday I Would Change My Name To Shut Up And Save Everybody A Lot Of Time.

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What's Beautiful About Art Is That It Circumscribes A Space, A Physical And Mental Space. If You Try To Put The Entire World Into Every Page, You Turn Out Chaos.

The Book Is Openly A Kind Of Spiritual Autobiography, But The Trick Is That On Any Other Level It's A Kind Of Insane Collage Of Fragments Of Memory.

I Had An All-fear Of Music Ipod, Just Versions Of The 11 Songs From The Record. No Other Songs Allowed.

I'm Not A Sociologist, And The Novel Has Often Concerned Itself With Sociology. It's One Of The Generating Forces That's Made Fiction Interesting To People. But That's Not My Concern. I'm Interested In Psychology. And Also Certain Philosophical Questions About The World.

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