Jonathan Lethem Quotes

There have been times in my life when I felt compelled to write things down as a matter of therapy, but whatever I kept about those days, I shredded. It was too personal.

Our pain hides beneath these fluttering, random thoughts that run through our heads in an endless loop. But there's so much freedom in getting to know what's under there, the bedrock.

I believe that literature always goes precisely there where the damage to a person has been done.

When you watch 'Doom Patrol,' you'll see most of the characters are trying to run away from their feelings and their emotions, and the minute they take a second and look at themselves face to face, that's when things can actually get resolved and get one step closer to peace.

Writing is a type of therapy for me. I'm always trying to break down what happened, and why I felt a certain way.

It's very special that I can go through things - and write them down and record them - and so many people can relate. Not everybody can get out who they are and really feel better after they write.

In the last couple of years I've been facing down a lot of the demons of the past and trying to find out, who I am, It's something I think I'll be doing for the rest of my life.

You don't need to exorcise your personal demons onstage.

When you come from so many damaged places you don't ever want to spiral back there, so you gotta continue to check yourself.

'Scar Tissue' is the only book I've ever written when I've felt completely toxic, ill.

I think it's really cool to embrace the pain of something that may have hurt you and be able to express it through music.

I used to love writing in my journal.

Writing is a way of processing our lives. And it can be a way of healing.

I believe my own demons would have caught up with me regardless of my race and regardless of whether I worked at 'The Times.'

The only thing I have done religiously in my life is keep a journal. I have hundreds of them, filled with feathers, flowers, photographs, and words - without locks, open on my shelves.

When I write, it's to heal. It's my own self-therapy so that I don't actually feel sad all of the time.

I wrote 'Road Less Traveled' to make myself feel better and process what I was going through.

I look at something like 'Short Term 12,' and that character has a lot of pain, and I wouldn't have known how to portray that if I hadn't experienced pain myself.

I feel like my music at least allows me to release the other side of me, a more vulnerable and sensitive side.

I've been writing books because it's been my way of dealing with the demons. The act of sitting down and writing the books down has started healing process that's been long overdue.

Trauma and pain and suffering can be the very thing that dislodges a person from themselves both in awful ways and larger ways that force one to reckon with one's own life.

I'm interested in damaged people because we've all been roughed up in one way or another.

I do a lot of journaling.

When I write sad songs, I feel like I'm sewing up a scar in me, and the outcome always feels so much better than when I write happy ones.

I can laugh at my own grief.