Raymond Quotes & Sayings

I enjoy creating and developing characters, as well as situations. But I have always had more ideas than I can ever put down on paper and fantasy allows me to include a lot of what I feel. — Raymond Buckland

The Bible itself has a hundred theologies.

(Karl Barth, January 27, 1959 to English Colloquia in Basel) — Raymond Kemp Anderson

Ethical conduct is something that becomes inherent in an organization over a long period of time. — Lee R. Raymond

She was thinking. i could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother for her. — Raymond Chandler

Nietzsche seems sometimes to replace the "transcendence" which stands at the center of traditional accounts the existence of a transcendent God, or, failing that, a transcendental viewpoint with that of a continually transcending activity ... There is no single, final perspective, but given any one perspective, we can always go beyond it. — Raymond Geuss

You've got to hae ground forces that are capable of going after them and rooting them out. — Raymond T. Odierno

I can sometimes gaze out of the window, at the sheep, ponies, grazing deer, and numerous woodland folk. It's a wonderful setting in which to write. I live on a dirt road, miles from anywhere, with no neighbors. — Raymond Buckland

Why, with all this good intention, does it still feel so muddy when we talk about culture, what it is, and how to make it better? It's because we're trying to bring personal growth and spiritual ideas into the workplace without first changing the underlying agreement that governs it. The — Jonathan Raymond

When you live in the dark for so long, you begin to love it. And it loves you back, and isn't that the point? You think, the face turns to the shadows, and just as well. It accepts, it heals, it allows. But it also devours. — Raymond Carver

Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they an best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason
if the worlds are in any way blurred
the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing 'weak specification'. — Raymond Carver

There was a time when actors went in at the back door. Most of them still should. — Raymond Chandler

It got dark and the rain-clouded lights of the stores were soaked up by the black street. — Raymond Chandler

There is no God, and conversation is a dying art. — Raymond Carver

As they walked he glanced sideways and at last asked, "You are the one they call Pug?"
If Pug hadn't already been surprised by what they had encountered, he was now openly taken aback. "Yes," he said.
"I'd thought you'd be taller," mused the Pantathian. — Raymond E. Feist

I got down off the stool and stood waiting. She might or might not blow me down. I didn't particularly care. Once in a while in this much too sex-conscious country a man and a woman can meet and talk without dragging bedrooms into it. This could be it, or she could just think I was on the make. If so, the hell with her. — Raymond Chandler

Guns never settle anything, I said. They are just a fast curtain to a bad second act — Raymond Chandler

The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users. Sometimes the latter is better. — Eric S. Raymond

I'm a licensed private investigator and have been for quite a while. I'm a lone wolf, unmarried, getting middle-aged, and not rich. I've been in jail more than once and I don't do divorce business. I like liquor and women and chess and a few other things. The cops don't like me too well, but I know a couple I get along with. I'm a native son, born in Santa Rosa, both parents dead, no brothers or sisters, and when I get knocked off in a dark alley sometime, if it happens, as it could to anyone in my business, nobody will feel that the bottom has dropped out of his or her life. — Raymond Chandler

She was kind of girl who'd eat all your cashews and leave you with nothing but peanuts and filberts. — Raymond Chandler

The adult public's taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm. — Raymond Loewy

I wrote my graduate thesis at New York University on hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and 1940s, so, for about two years, I read nothing but Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Cain and Chester Himes. I developed such a love for this kind of writing. — Megan Abbott

First impression: The Tijuana dump is beautiful. Second impression: It is like a military operation. It is at the top of a small mountain. A convoy of trucks comes to the top of the mountain and dumps the refuse of a developing city. [...]
Other equipment moves mountains of dirt to cover the wastes. At intervals, standpipes are inserted into the filled spaces to allow the biogas of the rotting materials below to escape. The wind blows across these vents, creating an eerie music. When the biogas envelops you, you sense that sinking feeling of doom. — Raymond Coppinger

I love the opportunity to just let my imagination run riot! Non-fiction can be very restrictive. — Raymond Buckland

Beauties" by Anton Chekhov, "The Doll's House" by Katherine Mansfield, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J. D. Salinger, "Brownies" or "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" both by ZZ Packer, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel, "Fat" by Raymond Carver, "Indian Camp — Gabrielle Zevin

A treat indeed, to read Raymond Chandler for the first time. I almost envied the man, — Lawrence Block

I think photography was inside me. Once I found it, it became stronger than me and I took refuge in it. — Raymond Depardon

I can't find good people" becomes "I can't know who my A players are until I challenge them to find out." "Nobody cares as much as I do" becomes "I haven't figured out how they care in their own way that can harmonize with the way that I do." "I can't afford to invest time in someone who is just going to leave anyway" becomes "I don't have time to do anything else." "I'm not a therapist, I don't have the skills to help them with their personal problems" becomes "I'm not a therapist, but I am two steps ahead of this person as a professional and can help them grow by sharing the things I've learned along the way." "We just need better systems and more communication" becomes "We don't need more communication. We need to start speaking a different language." Imagine — Jonathan Raymond

If you seek creative ideas go walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for
a walk. — Raymond I. Myers

The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love. — Raymond Chandler

Hair like steel wool grew far back on his head and gave him a domed brown forehead that might at careless glance seemed a dwelling place for brains. — Raymond Chandler

I was reading Raymond Chandler very much with the feminist eye. In six of his seven novels, it's the woman who presents herself in a sexual way, who is the main bad person. And then you start reading more fiction, whether crime fiction or straight fiction, it's just bad girls trying to make good boys do bad things, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. The woman that thou gavest me made me do it, Adam says to God. — Sara Paretsky

You know what it is to laugh at death, Arutha. You'll never be the same man again. — Raymond E. Feist

A wedge of sunlight slipped over the edge of the desk and fell noiselessly to the carpet. — Raymond Chandler

The next hour was three hours long — Raymond Chandler

The voice was cool, drawling, and insolent, but the eyes were something else. She looked about as hard to get as a haircut. — Raymond Chandler

There was nothing left to fear. He would endure or he wouldn't. — Raymond E. Feist

He [James Cain] is every kind of writer I detest ... a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk and a board fence and nobody looking. — Raymond Chandler

When the doctrine is clear and the culture is beautiful, that church will be powerful. But there are no shortcuts to getting there. Without the doctrine, the culture will be weak. Without the culture, the doctrine will seem pointless. — Raymond C. Ortlund Jr.

Find where the sound ends and silence begins. Then exist in that moment, for there will you find your secret centre of being, the perfect place of peace within yourself. — Raymond E. Feist

Anyone can express himself or herself, but what writers and poets want to do in their work, more than simply express themselves, is communicate. — Raymond Carver

A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before. — Raymond Chandler

An unmentored daughter is an unnurtured daughter, unnurtured in the strength she needs to Survive as an original woman in this world. Daughters, as compared to sons in a hetero-relational family, are more undernurtured in all ways by mothers and pressured prematurely to become nurturers of others - mostly of men. What also happens in this context, as Denice Yanni has pointed out, is "a silencing of woman's own needs for nurturing by making her the primary nurturer. — Janice G. Raymond

I truly believe that we're about to enter a second golden age of design. The first one was in the '50s and '60s, when designers like Raymond Loewy, Charles Eames, George Nelson and Dieter Rams were shepherds of the brands they were working with. They had influence over the products and how companies communicated and promoted themselves. — Yves Behar

There was a bright flash of brilliant white light, like the midday summer sun reflecting off of a freshly cleaned mirror.
And then it was gone. — Raymond Rice

It's very rare that someone gets the death penalty for charges of conspiracy, for his influence, for his Svengali-Rasputin act. — Raymond Pettibon

The sun had burned off whatever morning fog and low clouds had gripped the city, and now a glorious fall day was upon them. Warm sunlight caressed his face as cool ocean breezes carried the sound of gulls and the tang of salt. He remembered the stab of pain he had felt when he had thought he would not see the day, and the terror and panic that had gripped him as rough hands had placed him upon the gallows returned. Erik felt a choking sensation in his own chest, and suddenly, without any ability to control it, he began to weep. Roo — Raymond E. Feist

You hold in your hands the future of the world. — Raymond Poincare

Also, it's risky to try to duplicate earlier success. Magician had a certain charm to it, mostly due to my choice of lead characters, that I would be hard put to duplicate. — Raymond E. Feist

I have taken a terrible beating from the truth and feel tamed, wise and desperate, as if I had taken a short route to wisdom through a mirror, and cut myself badly on it as I passed through. — Derek Raymond

Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter. — Eric Raymond

Permanence was a illusion, and nothin really mattered but now. — Raymond L. Atkins

God does not require you to follow His leadings on blind trust. Behold the evidence of an invisible intelligence pervading everything, even your own mind and body. — Raymond Holliwell

Her taste still teased my tongue, and her touch tipped my fingers. Her smile licked my lips, and her heart beat my own. So I tugged on her sheets, like it was a cape. To me, she was a God damned super hero, and underneath, was everything I need. Her super powers on top of me. — J. Raymond

Within the secular world picture, Neuromania and Darwinitis are the biggest piles of rubbish. — Raymond Tallis

Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this. — Raymond Carver

I beheld before me an animated Corse. Her countenance was long and haggard; Her cheeks and lips were bloodless; The paleness of death was spread over her features, and her eye-balls fixed stedfastly upon me were lustreless and hollow.
I gazed upon the Spectre with horror too great to be described. My blood was frozen in my veins. I would have called for aid, but the sound expired, ere it could pass my lips. My nerves were bound up in impotence, and I remained in the same attitude inanimate as a Statue.
The visionary Nun looked upon me for some minutes in silence: There was something petrifying in her regard. At length in a low sepulchral voice She pronounced the following words.
Raymond! Raymond! Thou art mine!
Raymond! Raymond! I am thine!
In thy veins while blood shall roll,
I am thine!
Thou art mine!
Mine thy body! Mine thy soul!
— Matthew Gregory Lewis

It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love. — Raymond Carver

A man makes choices," Tal said.

"True, but what choices a man makes depends on what choices he is offered. — Raymond E. Feist

then Malloy took the gun away from whoever did it. — Raymond Chandler

She persisted when I resisted. And thank God for that. Because the number of storms I needed to go through before appreciating the way the wind whipped through her hair was one to many. Now, I'd move mountains to make her mine. Rain or shine. — J. Raymond

The keynote of American civilization is a sort of warm-hearted vulgarity. The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt. — Raymond Chandler

I have never understood why public opinion about European ideas should be taken into account. — Raymond Barre

I looked at the ornaments on the desk. Everything standard and all copper. A copper lamp, pen set and pencil tray, a glass and copper ashtray with a copper elephant on the rim, a copper letter opener, a copper thermos bottle on a copper tray, copper corners on the blotter holder. There was a spray of almost copper-colored sweet peas in a copper vase.
It seemed like a lot of copper. — Raymond Chandler

Moinous reaches for Sucette's hand and squeezes it. Oh but I do love you, I do, I swear, in spite of them. However, for the first time in his life Moinous understands what quicksand love is. — Raymond Federman

Only yourself can critizice your ideas for you are the only one who knows where are they coming from and how they were born. — Pedro A. Perez Raymond

Good design is not an applied veneer. — Raymond Loewy

History is written by victors," said Duko. "But I have little use for history. It is the future with which I am concerned. — Raymond E. Feist

A good novel, one which entices the author as much as it beckons the reader. — W.J. Raymond

Never think taking a life is easy. Do that and in a way they win. — Raymond E. Feist

Great accountability is nothing more and nothing less than having the courage to demand that the people who work for you use their strengths in a responsible way. Learning — Jonathan Raymond

The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get published. The average
or only slightly above average
detective story does ... Whereas the good novel is not at all the same kind of book as the bad novel. It is about entirely different things. But the good detective story and the bad detective story are about exactly the same things, and they are about them in very much the same way. — Raymond Chandler

I read a lot of short fiction, like Kurt Vonnegut and Raymond Carver and Wells Tower. — Lorde

There are sunsets above other oceans, Ghuda. Mighty sights and great wonders to behold. — Raymond E. Feist

Cry about what, Mr. Raymond?" Dill's maleness was beginning to assert itself. "Cry about the simple hell people give other people - without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they're people, too." "Atticus — Harper Lee

And did you get what you wanted from this life even so? i did. — Raymond Carver

Above all never forget that a marriage is in one way very much like a newspaper. It has to be made fresh every damn day of every damn year. — Raymond Chandler

The really inspired person is never inspired: he's always inspired: he doesn't go looking for inspiration and he doesn't get up in arms about artistic technique. — Raymond Queneau

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man's insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity ... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough ... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes- dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery. — Raymond B. Fosdick

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. — Raymond Chandler

When the American documentary filmmaker Donn Alan Pennebaker wanted to do a film on Dylan, Dylan asked him what he'd already done, and Pennebaker answered, Nothing except shots in the street. Dylan asked to see them, and he agreed to let him do the film. — Raymond Depardon

It is said by some that the gods show us their bitter humor by molding us into what we hate most in others. — Raymond E. Feist

Most writers do similar things in their minds. It's how the mind works, basically. — Raymond Pettibon

Writers who have the vision and the ability to produce real fiction do not produce unreal fiction. — Raymond Chandler

You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women. — Raymond Chandler

Life is problems. Living is solving problems. — Raymond E. Feist

Some loves come unbidden like winds from the sea, and others grow from the seeds of friendship. — Raymond E. Feist

Have you ever wronged a man . . . just to do him harm? Or have you always had a reason?'

Kaspar answered quickly. 'There was always a reason.'

'There you have it,' said Samas as he sat down. He motioned for Kaspar to fetch over a cup of water for him. 'You would never look at yourself as "evil" no matter what the other fellow thought of what you did. It's in our nature. And that's the great secret of evil. It is never viewed as evil by those who perpetrate the evil. — Raymond E. Feist

If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come. — Raymond Chandler

computer). This is where they polish their final images, — Raymond Salisbury

It's very comforting to know that you are faced with a difficult job. If someone gives you a job which shows every sign of being easy, then you are a prisoner of effortlessness. — Raymond Aubrac

Ralph also took some classes in philosophy and literature and felt himself on the brink of some kind of huge discovery about himself. But it never came. — Raymond Carver

The truth will always be the truth, no matter how it's told. — Khali Raymond

When you're a little fat boy in any kind of school, you're just persecuted something awful. — Raymond Burr

Private enterprise is not as spectacular nor as easy to see as the socialist way of temporarily diffusing poverty by eating up the seed corn - the tools - which will increase poverty in the long run. — Raymond C. Hoiles

I'm killing time and it's dying hard. — Raymond Chandler

A shrieking battle cry echoed on the wind, a spine-tingling scream that sounded like the baying of the wolves closing in on their prey. — Raymond E. Feist

In New York City we have the biggest police force in the country. We have 35,000 uniformed officers. We're able to mass officers in significant numbers if we had to. — Raymond Kelly

Who needs eyes when you can hallucinate? — Raymond Pettibon

Tragic to kill a friend in battle by mistake when there are so many enemies to go around. — Raymond E. Feist

You can be as sharp-tongued as a viper, but you can also be as sweet as wild clover honey. — Raymond E. Feist