I ain't sleeping. I'm just taking a good look at the insides of my eyelids. — Jonathan Raban Eyelids Copy Share Image
No president has come near to rivaling Lincoln as a writer. — Jonathan Raban Lincoln Copy Share Image
Trouble defies the law of gravity. It's easier to pick up than to drop. — Jonathan Raban Drop Copy Share Image
In an underdeveloped country don't drink the water. In a developed country don't breathe the air. — Jonathan Raban Air Copy Share Image
In novels and autobiographies, the first positive move that the immigrant makes towards assimilation is to buy himself a suit of city… — Jonathan Raban Assimilation Copy Share Image
The north-south line of 'the mountains,' meaning the Cascade Range, forty miles east of Seattle, is a rigid political frontier. — Jonathan Raban Cascade Copy Share Image
Because Washington state now votes by mail, elections here tend to play out, at an agonizingly slow speed, over many days and,… — Jonathan Raban Democracy Copy Share Image
The city has always been an embodiment of hope and a source of feeling guilt; a dream pursued, and found vain, wanting,… — Jonathan Raban Cities Copy Share Image
Inaugurals conventionally start with a history lesson and finish with a prayer. — Jonathan Raban History Copy Share Image
If we live inside a bad joke, it is up to us to learn, at best and worst, to tell it well. — Jonathan Raban Bad jokes Copy Share Image
Lincoln, steeped in the Bible and Shakespeare, set an impossibly high bar for presidential prose. — Jonathan Raban Bars Copy Share Image
I've taught the better class of tourist both to see and not to see; to lift their eyes above and beyond the… — Jonathan Raban Above and beyond Copy Share Image
It always seems to me odd to call a place a wilderness when every wilderness area in the US bristles with rules… — Jonathan Raban Areas Copy Share Image
The only book by a modern president that bears serious comparison with Obama's 'Dreams From My Father' is Jimmy Carter's short campaign… — Jonathan Raban Autobiography Copy Share Image
The Falklands held a mirror up to our own islands, and it reflected, in brilliantly sharp focus, all our injured belittlement, our… — Jonathan Raban Falklands Copy Share Image
Dreams From My Father' reveals more about Obama than is usually known about political leaders until after they're dead. Perhaps more than… — Jonathan Raban Audience Copy Share Image
Travel. It was an intransitive verb. It didn't involve any destinations. It was going to the going's sake, to be anywhere but… — Jonathan Raban Destination Copy Share Image
Seattle is a liberal city, its politics not so much blue (in the American, not the British, sense) as deep ultramarine, and… — Jonathan Raban Blue Copy Share Image
We need more urgently than architectural utopias, ingenious traffic disposal systems, or ecological programmes to comprehend the nature of citizenship,… — Jonathan Raban Architecture Copy Share Image
One of the oddest features of western Christianized culture is its ready acceptance of the myth of the stable family and the… — Jonathan Raban Acceptance Copy Share Image
The only real river I knew was hardly more than a brook. It spilled through a tumbledown mill at the bottom of… — Jonathan Raban Bottom Copy Share Image
By the end of the 1980s, Seattle had taken on the dangerous lustre of a promised city. The rumour had gone out… — Jonathan Raban Cities Copy Share Image
The [travel] writer, looking back at the journey from a distance of a year or two (or three), is a different character… — Jonathan Raban Alter ego Copy Share Image
One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when… — Jonathan Raban American landscape Copy Share Image
Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man… — Jonathan Raban Architecture Copy Share Image
My new city [Seattle] and its hinterland felt deceptively homely. Their similar latitude gave them the angular light and lingering evenings I… — Jonathan Raban Britain Copy Share Image
Insofar as I think about postmodernism at all, and it doesn't exactly keep me awake at nights, I think of it as… — Jonathan Raban Authority Copy Share Image
I loved the audacity of that American principle which says. When life gets tainted or goes stale, junk it! Leave it behind!… — Jonathan Raban Audacity Copy Share Image
Spells of acute loneliness are an essential part of travel. Loneliness makes things happen. — Jonathan Raban Essentials Copy Share Image
Over emphatic negatives always suggest that what is being denied may be what is really being asserted. — Jonathan Raban Denied Copy Share Image
Interstate highways dull the reality of place and distance almost as effectively as jetliners do: I loathe their scary monotony. — Jonathan Raban Distance Copy Share Image
At night, what you see is a city, because all you see is lights. By day, it doesn't look like a city… — Jonathan Raban Cities Copy Share Image
Seattle was built out on pilings over the sea, and at high tide the whole city seemed to come afloat like a… — Jonathan Raban Built Copy Share Image
When I want an opinion, I'll get it from my peers - from men of vision, like our great railroad builders... Stanford,… — Jonathan Raban Broads Copy Share Image
Heartbreak comes in different sizes, and the departure of an 18-year-old child for a far college has to be treated as a… — Jonathan Raban Benign Copy Share Image
There's an enduring American compulsion to be on the side of the angels. Expediency alone has never been an adequate American reason… — Jonathan Raban Action Copy Share Image
When New Yorkers tell one about the dangers of their city, the muggings, the dinner parties to which no one turns up… — Jonathan Raban Bland Copy Share Image
The trouble with ghostwriting is that it raises the issue of whether the president is in a state of diminished responsibility for… — Jonathan Raban Doe Copy Share Image
![“The only real river I knew was hardly more than a brook. It spilled through a tumbledown mill at the bottom of our road, opened into a little trouty pool, then ran on through water meadows over graveled shallows into Fakenham [England], where it slowed and deepened, gathering strength for the long…” quote by Jonathan Raban](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/29e/jonathan-raban-11981_bottom_the-only-real-river-i-knew-was-hardly-mo_2096118.jpg)
![“The [travel] writer, looking back at the journey from a distance of a year or two (or three), is a different character from the hapless character who undertook the trip: wise after the event, with the leisure to tease out meanings from the experience that the distracted traveler never had, and…” quote by Jonathan Raban](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e55/jonathan-raban-11981_alter-ego_the-travel-writer-looking-back-at-the-jo_461527.jpg)
![“My new city [Seattle] and its hinterland felt deceptively homely. Their similar latitude gave them the angular light and lingering evenings I was used to. Their damp marine weather, blowing in from the southwest, came in the right direction. When the mountains are hidden under a low sky, one might…” quote by Jonathan Raban](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/8e6/jonathan-raban-11981_britain_my-new-city-seattle-and-its-hinterland-f_363879.jpg)
