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Jonathan Raban Quotes

Seattle is this curious liberal island Picture Quote #1

Seattle is not an overly friendly city. It is a civil city, but not altogether friendly. People from outside mistake the civility for friendliness. Seattle is full of people who have their own lives to live. They won’t waste their time being friendly. But they are civil Picture Quote #1

Critics? Don’t talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don’t Picture Quote #1

In an underdeveloped country don’t drink the water. In a developed country don’t breathe the air Picture Quote #1

The only book by a modern president that bears serious comparison with Obama’s ‘Dreams From My Father’ is Jimmy Carter’s short campaign autobiography, ‘Why Not the Best?,’ published in 1975 Picture Quote #1

Dreams From My Father’ reveals more about Obama than is usually known about political leaders until after they’re dead. Perhaps more than it intends, it shows his mind working, in real time, sentence by sentence, in what feels like a private audience with the reader Picture Quote #1

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By the end of the 1980s, Seattle had taken on the dangerous lustre of a promised city. The rumour had gone out that if you had failed in Detroit you might yet succeed in Seattle - and that if you’d succeeded in Seoul, you could succeed even better in Seattle... Seattle was the coming place. So I joined the line of hopefuls Picture Quote #1

Books admitted me to their world open-handedly, as people for their most part, did not. The life I lived in books was one of ease and freedom, worldly wisdom, glitter, dash and style Picture Quote #1

At night, what you see is a city, because all you see is lights. By day, it doesn’t look like a city at all. The trees out-number the houses. And that’s completely typical of Seattle. You can’t quite tell: is it a city, is it a suburb, is the forest growing back? Picture Quote #1

The city has always been an embodiment of hope and a source of feeling guilt; a dream pursued, and found vain, wanting, and destructive Picture Quote #1

Spells of acute loneliness are an essential part of travel. Loneliness makes things happen Picture Quote #1

Inaugurals conventionally start with a history lesson and finish with a prayer Picture Quote #1

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Good travel books are novels at heart Picture Quote #1

The trouble with ghostwriting is that it raises the issue of whether the president is in a state of diminished responsibility for what he says. Does he actually grasp the implications of the words he speaks? Picture Quote #1

The air I was breathing wasn’t air: it was a compound of smells, of meat, sweat, popcorn, cooking fat and passed gas Picture Quote #1

If we live inside a bad joke, it is up to us to learn, at best and worst, to tell it well Picture Quote #1

Over emphatic negatives always suggest that what is being denied may be what is really being asserted Picture Quote #1

Seattle was built out on pilings over the sea, and at high tide the whole city seemed to come afloat like a ship lifting free from a mud berth and swaying in its chains Picture Quote #1

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Critics? Don’t talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don’t Picture Quote #1

Interstate highways dull the reality of place and distance almost as effectively as jetliners do: I loathe their scary monotony Picture Quote #1

Travel. It was an intransitive verb. It didn’t involve any destinations. It was going to the going’s sake, to be anywhere but where you were, with motion itself as the only object Picture Quote #1

I ain’t sleeping. I’m just taking a good look at the insides of my eyelids Picture Quote #1

Life, as the most ancient of all metaphors insists, is a journey; and the travel book, in its deceptive simulation of the journey’s fits and starts, rehearses life’s own fragmentation. More even than the novel, it embraces the contingency of things Picture Quote #1

Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the continual creative play of urban living. The city as we imagine it, then, soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture Picture Quote #1

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Sociology and anthropology are not disciplines which take easily to situations where people are able to live out their fantasies, not just in the symbolic action of ritual, but in the concrete theater of society at large Picture Quote #1

In novels and autobiographies, the first positive move that the immigrant makes towards assimilation is to buy himself a suit of city clothes Picture Quote #1

In the city one clings to nostalgic and unreal signs of community, takes forced refuge in codes, badges and coteries; the city’s life, of surfaces and locomotion, usually seems too dangerous and demanding to live through with any confidence Picture Quote #1

Friendship Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

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Text Quotes

Seattle is this curious liberal island (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Seattle is not an overly friendly city. It is a civil city, but not altogether friendly. People from outside mistake the civility for friendliness. Seattle is full of people who have their own lives to live. They won’t waste their time being friendly. But they are civil. (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Critics? Don’t talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don’t. (Jonathan Raban Quotes) In an underdeveloped country don’t drink the water. In a developed country don’t breathe the air. (Jonathan Raban Quotes) The only book by a modern president that bears serious comparison with Obama’s ‘Dreams From My Father’ is Jimmy Carter’s short campaign autobiography, ‘Why Not the Best?,’ published in 1975 (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Dreams From My Father’ reveals more about Obama than is usually known about political leaders until after they’re dead. Perhaps more than it intends, it shows his mind working, in real time, sentence by sentence, in what feels like a private audience with the reader (Jonathan Raban Quotes) By the end of the 1980s, Seattle had taken on the dangerous lustre of a promised city. The rumour had gone out that if you had failed in Detroit you might yet succeed in Seattle - and that if you’d succeeded in Seoul, you could succeed even better in Seattle... Seattle was the coming place. So I joined the line of hopefuls (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Books admitted me to their world open-handedly, as people for their most part, did not. The life I lived in books was one of ease and freedom, worldly wisdom, glitter, dash and style (Jonathan Raban Quotes) At night, what you see is a city, because all you see is lights. By day, it doesn’t look like a city at all. The trees out-number the houses. And that’s completely typical of Seattle. You can’t quite tell: is it a city, is it a suburb, is the forest growing back? (Jonathan Raban Quotes) The city has always been an embodiment of hope and a source of feeling guilt; a dream pursued, and found vain, wanting, and destructive (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Spells of acute loneliness are an essential part of travel. Loneliness makes things happen (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Inaugurals conventionally start with a history lesson and finish with a prayer (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Good travel books are novels at heart (Jonathan Raban Quotes) The trouble with ghostwriting is that it raises the issue of whether the president is in a state of diminished responsibility for what he says. Does he actually grasp the implications of the words he speaks? (Jonathan Raban Quotes) The air I was breathing wasn’t air: it was a compound of smells, of meat, sweat, popcorn, cooking fat and passed gas (Jonathan Raban Quotes) If we live inside a bad joke, it is up to us to learn, at best and worst, to tell it well (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Over emphatic negatives always suggest that what is being denied may be what is really being asserted (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Seattle was built out on pilings over the sea, and at high tide the whole city seemed to come afloat like a ship lifting free from a mud berth and swaying in its chains (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Critics? Don’t talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don’t (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Interstate highways dull the reality of place and distance almost as effectively as jetliners do: I loathe their scary monotony (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Travel. It was an intransitive verb. It didn’t involve any destinations. It was going to the going’s sake, to be anywhere but where you were, with motion itself as the only object (Jonathan Raban Quotes) I ain’t sleeping. I’m just taking a good look at the insides of my eyelids (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Life, as the most ancient of all metaphors insists, is a journey; and the travel book, in its deceptive simulation of the journey’s fits and starts, rehearses life’s own fragmentation. More even than the novel, it embraces the contingency of things (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the continual creative play of urban living. The city as we imagine it, then, soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture (Jonathan Raban Quotes) Sociology and anthropology are not disciplines which take easily to situations where people are able to live out their fantasies, not just in the symbolic action of ritual, but in the concrete theater of society at large (Jonathan Raban Quotes) In novels and autobiographies, the first positive move that the immigrant makes towards assimilation is to buy himself a suit of city clothes (Jonathan Raban Quotes) In the city one clings to nostalgic and unreal signs of community, takes forced refuge in codes, badges and coteries; the city’s life, of surfaces and locomotion, usually seems too dangerous and demanding to live through with any confidence (Jonathan Raban Quotes)