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?

Seattle Is This Curious Liberal Island.

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.

All This Piling Up Of One Technology On Top Of Another-railroad On Steamboat, Interstate Highway On Railroad, Hydroelectric Dam On Watermill-had Reduced The Mississippi From A Wonder Of Nature To This Sluggish Canal On The Wrong Side Of The Tracks.

It's Been So Long Since A Talented Writer Last Occupied The White House; No Wonder, Then, That American Writers Have Been Among The Most Prominent Of All The Demographic Groups Claiming A Piece Of Barack Obama For Themselves.

Over Emphatic Negatives Always Suggest That What Is Being Denied May Be What Is Really Being Asserted.

To The Newcomer Who Has Not Learned Its Language, A Large City Is A Chaos Of Details, A Vast Woolworths Store Of Differently Colored, Simlarly Priced Objects.

'rage' Is The Word That Most Often Attaches Itself To The Tea Party Movement, And It's True That, From The Outside Looking In, Their Public Demonstrations Appear To Be More Enraged Than Any Political Events In America Since The Race Riots And Anti-war Protests Of The 1960s.

Trouble Defies The Law Of Gravity. It's Easier To Pick Up Than To Drop.

Heartbreak Comes In Different Sizes, And The Departure Of An 18-year-old Child For A Far College Has To Be Treated As A Very Benign Form Of The Disease.

'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.

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.