Writer Admits Faking Dylan Quotes

Billboard.com reports that writer Jonah Lehrer has admitted to fabricating quotes by Dylan in his book Imagine: How Creativity Works. 

A report in Tablet Magazine on Monday says that its author Michael Moynihan contacted Lehrer about certain quotes and by the afternoon Lehrer had released a statement which said:

"I told Mr. Moynihan that they (the quotes in question) were from archival interview footage provided to me by Dylan's representatives. This was a lie spoken in a moment of panic. When Mr. Moynihan followed up, I continued to lie, and say things I should not have said," Lehrer wrote in his statement. "The lies are over now."

One such fake quote is from a famous interaction between Dylan and Time Magazine which was documented in the film Don't Look Back.

In the book Dylan is quoted as saying "I just write them. There's no great message. Stop asking me to explain," whereas the actual quote was "I just write them. I don't write them for any reason. There's no great message. If you wanna tell other people that, go ahead and tell them. But I'm not gonna have to answer to it."

There were other invented quotes about the writing of 'Like A Rolling Stone' and several "contextually problematic" quotes.

Lehrer has resigned from his job at New Yorker magazine and his publisher has, for the moment, halted sales on the eBook edition of Imagine.

(Billboard)