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Jonathan Raban Quotes

Powerful Jonathan Raban for Daily Growth

About Jonathan Raban

Jonathan Raban (born April 17, 1935) is an English travel writer, novelist, and essayist whose work explores the intricacies of urban landscapes and personal identity. Born in Cardiff, Wales, Raban spent much of his youth in post-war England, where he developed a keen interest in literature and the arts. He studied at King's College, Cambridge, before moving to the United States in 1957 to pursue a career in journalism. Raban's literary journey began with non-fiction works that delved into the fabric of American life, such as "Soft City" (1974) and "A Place Called X" (1979). These books showcased his unique ability to blend personal observation with cultural analysis. In 1980, Raban returned to England, where he continued to produce works that challenged conventional travel writing, such as "Coast of Utopia: The Strange Reflections of Captain John Smith" (1986) and "Bad Land: An American Romance" (1995). Raban's major works often revolve around themes of displacement, identity, and the human condition, mirroring his own experiences as an immigrant and traveler. His most celebrated work is probably "Without a Map: Notes on Pedestrian Travel," published in 1980, which reflects on the author's journey through North America on foot. Raban's writing style is characterized by his keen insight, wit, and ability to create vivid portraits of place and character. He has been awarded numerous prizes for his work, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for "Passage to Juneau" (1984) and the PEN/Malamud Award in 2007. Today, Raban continues to write and live in Britain. His enduring influence can be seen in the works of contemporary travel writers who draw inspiration from his innovative approach to the genre.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"Travel becomes a kind of yoga; a vehicle for moving the self beyond the narrow limits of its familiar life."

This quote by Jonathan Raban emphasizes that travel serves not just as a means to explore new places, but also as a personal growth journey. Travel can push us out of our comfort zones, encouraging us to expand our perspectives, challenge our preconceived notions, and broaden our horizons. In this sense, travel functions like yoga in its ability to help us stretch our mental and emotional boundaries and move beyond the confines of our usual lives, fostering self-discovery and personal growth.

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries."

This quote by Jonathan Raban highlights the importance of personal experience in understanding different cultures. It suggests that preconceived notions or stereotypes about foreign lands, often formed from hearsay or media portrayals, are unreliable. Traveling allows one to encounter realities that may contradict these expectations, thereby revealing their fallacy and fostering a more nuanced appreciation for the complexity of other societies. In essence, travel serves as an educator in empathy and cross-cultural understanding.

"Writing, like life itself, is an act of faith."

This quote by Jonathan Raban suggests that writing, similar to living, requires a deep sense of trust and belief. Just as one embarks on a journey in life, a writer sets out to create a narrative or piece of art, often with an uncertain outcome. The act of writing is an exercise of faith because it involves putting thoughts, feelings, and ideas into words, and exposing them to the world. This vulnerability and risk-taking are reminiscent of the trust and courage that define our daily lives. It also implies that the act of creation itself, whether in writing or life, holds the promise of a reward, even if it's not always immediately apparent.

"The truth about traveling is that it's a constant seeing, but a dismal not-understanding."

This quote by Jonathan Raban suggests that while travel offers countless visual experiences, it often fails to provide deep understanding or connection with the places visited. Traveling allows us to see new sights and cultures, but without immersion and interaction, the visitor remains an outsider, observing without truly comprehending the essence of a place.

"We make our own weather, each of us, from inside."

The quote suggests that our individual emotions, thoughts, actions, and behaviors significantly influence our personal environment, much like how we can impact the weather. In essence, people have the power to create their emotional climate, with feelings such as joy, anger, or sadness affecting their outlook on life, just as different weather patterns can affect one's surroundings. This quote emphasizes personal responsibility and self-awareness, encouraging individuals to recognize that they are not passive victims of circumstance but active participants in shaping their own reality.

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

Tide, Over, Built, Seemed

Every White House has had its intellectuals, but very few presidents have been intellectuals themselves - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, the list more or less stops there.

- Jonathan Raban

Been, Very, Presidents, None

'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.

- Jonathan Raban

Political, America, Enraged, Anti-War

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

Art, Think, Some, Eaten

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

- Jonathan Raban

Distance, Almost, Loathe, Highways

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

City, Forest, Tell, Lights

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.

- Jonathan Raban

College, Treated, Very, Departure

Over emphatic negatives always suggest that what is being denied may be what is really being asserted.

- Jonathan Raban

Always, Over, Negatives, Asserted

When I want an opinion, I'll get it from my peers - from men of vision, like our great railroad builders... Stanford, Huntington, Dinsmore... fellows with imaginations broad enough to span the continent.

- Jonathan Raban

Builders, Peers, Continent, Span

Lincoln, steeped in the Bible and Shakespeare, set an impossibly high bar for presidential prose.

- Jonathan Raban

Bible, High, Prose, Presidential

Seattle is a liberal city, its politics not so much blue (in the American, not the British, sense) as deep ultramarine, and its manners are studiously polite.

- Jonathan Raban

Deep, Politics, Polite, Seattle

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

City, Dangerous, Line, Seattle

Seattle is this curious liberal 'island.'

- Jonathan Raban

Curious, Island, Liberal, Seattle

Simply as a writer of books I'm thrilled and proud that Seattle should have raised, on a public vote, sufficient money to build a central library, and moreover to rebuild every other library in the city: 28 of them.

- Jonathan Raban

Proud, Other, Rebuild, Seattle

Democrats inhabit the low shores of Puget Sound, mostly on its eastern side, in a ragged trail of port-cities that stretches from Bellingham, close to the Canadian border, through Everett, Seattle, and Tacoma, to Olympia, the state capital, at the southern end of the sound.

- Jonathan Raban

Through, Southern, Mostly, Seattle

The north-south line of 'the mountains,' meaning the Cascade Range, forty miles east of Seattle, is a rigid political frontier.

- Jonathan Raban

Mountains, Line, Frontier, Seattle

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

Father, Book, Comparison, Why Not

I've taught the better class of tourist both to see and not to see; to lift their eyes above and beyond the inessentials, and thrill to our western Nature in her majesty.

- Jonathan Raban

Nature, Eyes, Thrill, Lift

Because Washington state now votes by mail, elections here tend to play out, at an agonizingly slow speed, over many days and, sometimes, weeks.

- Jonathan Raban

Play, Here, Over, Washington State

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.

- Jonathan Raban

Been, Prominent, Obama, White House

In an underdeveloped country don't drink the water. In a developed country don't breathe the air.

- Jonathan Raban

Country, Developed Country, Breathe

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

Words, Implications, Issue, Raises

No president has come near to rivaling Lincoln as a writer.

- Jonathan Raban

Come, Writer, Lincoln, Near

Inaugurals conventionally start with a history lesson and finish with a prayer.

- Jonathan Raban

Prayer, Start, Lesson, Finish

'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

Political Leaders, Feels, Real Time

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