A Quote by Jonathan Raban

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 almost imagine oneself to be in Britain.

Jonathan Raban

Quote Topics

Almost Angular Blowing Britain Came City Damp Direction Evenings Felt Gave Hidden Homely Imagine Latitude Light Lingering Low Marine Might Mountains New Oneself Right Right Direction Seattle Similar Sky Southwest Them Used Weather

Quote Author

Jonathan Raban
British - Novelist
Born: June 14, 1942

Seattle is beautiful. You look at the sky and it's one of the most beautiful skies in the world, and then there's the Puget Sound, which will kill you, if you fall into it, but it's also beautiful. Seattle is a city of contradictions. It's the most liberal and most literate city in America, and it has Starbucks and [Bill] Gates, but it's also where the Green River killer hunted women and where the runaway population is just shocking when you walk the streets. Within the same city, there's darkness and light.

Veena Sud

Imagine you are walking down a leafy path...The sun is receding, and you are walking alone, caressed by the breezy light of the late afternoon. Then suddenly, you feel a large drop on your right arm. Is it raining? You look up. The sky is still deceptively sunny...seconds later another drop. Then, with the sun still perched in the sky, you are drenched in a shower of rain. This is how memories invade me, abruptly and unexpectedly.

Azar Nafisi

John [Cassavetes] loved actors. He gave them a lot of freedom. So if something came up that a certain actor just felt at the moment and said - that kind of improvisation he would accept. He gave very little direction.

Gena Rowlands

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

I sat in at every club in New York City, jamming with musicians, because it felt right - and because it felt right and we were having fun - the people dancing and sipping their drinks in the clubs felt it too and it made them smile.

Ray Conniff

My father is a Marine. My brother is a Marine. I almost became a Marine. I'm no stranger to fight training. I used to do jujitsu and boxing as a kid. I was a running back in football for my high school and my college. I played ice hockey as well as did theater. So, there's always been a physical nature to me.

Zach McGowan

This willingness continually to revise one's own location in order to place oneself in the path of beauty is the basic impulse underlying education. One submits oneself to other minds (teachers) in order to increase the chance that one will be looking in the right direction when a comet makes its sweep through a certain patch of sky.

Elaine Scarry

I do not live happily or comfortably With the cleverness of our times. The talk is all about computers, The news is all about bombs and blood. This morning, in the fresh field, I came upon a hidden nest. It held four warm, speckled eggs. I touched them. Then went away softly, Having felt something more wonderful Than all the electricity of New York City.

Mary Oliver

New York at night, from its bridges, is a miracle. When I first came to the city, it took all my fantasies and set them on fire, turned them into flickering constellations of light.

Melissa Febos

Homesickness is a great teacher. It taught me, during an endless rainy fall, that I came from the arid lands, and like where I came from. I was used to dry clarity and sharpness in the air. I was used to horizons that either lifted into jagged ranges or rimmed the geometrical circle of the flat world. I was used to seeing a long way. I was used to earth colors--tan, rusty red, toned white--and the endless green of Iowa offended me. I was used to a sun that came up over mountains and went down behind other mountains. I missed the color and smell of sagebrush, and the sight of bare ground.

Wallace Stegner

I love Seattle, but I am definitely excited to be in a new place. Growing up there and then living in an apartment in the city for seven years, I just felt stagnant.

Robin Pecknold

Life in Newcastle has been a lot more similar to life in Seattle, which has been great. The city is relaxed but, just like Seattle, Newcastle's passion for their team is second to none. You get recognized walking down the street or when you're around town.

DeAndre Yedlin

As far as the music being inspired by Seattle, I think it's in some of the songs. Seattle is a really beautiful place in the right light, it's perched on a pretty unique geographic setting.

Robin Pecknold

My favourite city of all has to be Seattle as it seems to encapsulate everything that is great about both Britain and America.

Toyah Willcox

The weather is the worst. I lived many years in Lisbon and then went to Monaco, places that are similar in terms of weather and food. In Manchester, it's eight or nine months of cold, and that makes a difference, but apart from that, I'm really enjoying the city.