Author admits making up Bob Dylan quotes

Updated: July 30, 2012 - 7:44 PM

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A staff writer for the New Yorker has resigned and his best-selling book has been halted after he acknowledged inventing quotes by Bob Dylan.

Jonah Lehrer, at left, released a statement Monday through publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt saying that some Dylan quotes appearing in "Imagine: How Creativity Works" did "not exist." Others were "unintentional misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes."

Lehrer said he acknowledged his actions after being contacted by Michael Moynihan of the online publication Tablet Magazine, which earlier Monday released an in-depth story on the Dylan passages in "Imagine"

"I told Mr. Moynihan that they [the quotes] 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. I understand the gravity of my position. I want to apologize to everyone I have let down, especially my editors and readers."

Houghton Mifflin said that Lehrer had committed a "serious misuse." Listings for the e-book edition of "Imagine" will be removed and shipments of the book were stopped. "Imagine," published in March, has sold more than 200,000 copies. It has spent 16 weeks on the New York Times' hardcover nonfiction bestseller list.

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