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Quote by Jonathan Raban

“In novels and autobiographies, the first positive move that the immigrant makes towards assimilation is to buy himself a suit of city clothes.”

Quote by Jonathan Raban

Book:Soft City: Picador Classic

Work

Soft City: Picador Classic

This book is a novel that delves into the complexities of urban environments and their influence on the lives of individuals. Set in a modern cityscape, the narrative examines the psychological and social dynamics at play within urban settings. more

Author

Jonathan Raban, born on June 14, 1942, is a renowned travel writer from the United Kingdom. His works are known for their unique perspective and profound insights into travel experiences, covering a wide range of regions from Africa to the Americas. Raban's writing style often blends travel literature, history, and philosophy, giving his works a distinct literary value. more

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“When New Yorkers tell one about the dangers of their city, the muggings, the dinner parties to which no one turns up for fear of being attacked on the way, the traffic snarl-ups, the bland indifference of the city cops, they are unmistakably bragging.”

Way Turns Party Cities Danger New York Dinner Indifference Cop Traffic New Yorkers Bragging Dinner Party Bland

Book:Soft City: Picador Classic

Source: Soft City: Picador Classic

“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.”

Sides Wonder Technology Rivers Track Highways Mississippi Railroads Dams Canals Sluggish Interstate Wonder Of Nature Steamboats

Book:Old Glory, an American Voyage

Source: Old Glory, an American Voyage

“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 drifts across muddy flatlands to Norwich and the North Sea.”

Littles Long Real Water Sea Rivers England Bottom Ran Pool Gathering Brooks Meadows Mills Muddy Norwich North Sea

Author:Jonathan Raban

“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.”

People Able Action Situation Fantasy Society Discipline Theater Ritual Concrete Sociology Symbolic Anthropology

Book:Soft City: Picador Classic

Source: Soft City: Picador Classic

“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.”

“One of the oddest features of western Christianized culture is its ready acceptance of the myth of the stable family and the happy marriage. We have been taught to accept the myth not as an heroic ideal, something good, brave, and nearly impossible to fulfil, but as the very fiber of normal life. Given most families and most marriages, the belief seems admirable but foolhardily.”

Source: For Love and Money: A Writing Life

“There's an enduring American compulsion to be on the side of the angels. Expediency alone has never been an adequate American reason for doing anything. When actions are judged, they go before the bar of God, where Mom and the Flag closely flank His presence.”

Reason Action Sides Mom Angel Endure Bars Judged Flags Adequate Compulsion Expediency

Book:For Love and Money: A Writing Life

Source: For Love and Money: A Writing Life

“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.”

Book Novel Journey Fit Travel Embrace Ancient Metaphor Deceptive Simulation Contingency Fragmentation Travel Books

Book:For love & money: writing, reading, travelling, 1969-1987

Source: For love & money: writing, reading, travelling, 1969-1987

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

Sometimes States Play Week Vote Election Speed Mail Washington State

Author:Jonathan Raban

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

Book:Driving Home: An American Scrapbook

Source: Driving Home: An American Scrapbook