Jonathan Lethem

Nerds are just deep, and neurotic, fans. Needy fans. We're all nerds, on one subject or another.

Discomfort is very much part of my master plan.

The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals.

When I do my makeup, it kind of helps me get into the character that I'm trying to portray.

I don't see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that's almost inconceivable.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.