Jonathan Raymond Quotes

• Yo can’t reason someone out of something he didn’t reason himself into.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Reason

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• Why do I have an issue with banks? They have their greedy fingers in everyones money. No other industry has the power to deduct a bill or fees directly from your own bank account without so much as a notice.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Issues, Bills, Greedy

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• I have a feeling the writers who find screenwriting difficult are usually just not lazy enough for the job. They don't know how to stop before the task is done. I've always had a knack for leaving things unfinished, which makes screenwriting easier for me than most.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Jobs, Feelings, Leaving

  "Jon Raymond’s Californian Epic". Interview with Christopher Bollen, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 1, 2017.

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• I found once you start writing about God it's really fun. It's like a rock singer saying "baby." "Baby, baby, baaayy-by." You start saying "God" on the page and you don't want to stop.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Baby, Fun, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I'm the type of spiritual person that doesn't speak openly about their spirituality. Irony is probably my religion.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Spiritual, Irony, Speak

  "Jon Raymond’s Californian Epic". Interview with Christopher Bollen, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 1, 2017.

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• I think Trump has made it really hard for people to read, period. He's made it hard for me anyway. Part of his evil is the way it constantly distracts us, constantly upends our horizon. To leave your computer for three hours now is to miss a year's worth of drama. This is programmatic and common to other autocratic regimes of our times.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Drama, Thinking, Years

  "Jon Raymond’s Californian Epic". Interview with Christopher Bollen, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 1, 2017.

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• I've often said, not totally jokingly, that screenwriting doesn't really qualify as real writing at all. You don't string sentences into paragraphs. You don't maintain a constant breath, or create internal rhythms, or even develop a fully-formed thought. The camera does all that work for you!

  Jonathan Raymond

  Real, Writing, Cameras

  "Jon Raymond’s Californian Epic". Interview with Christopher Bollen, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 1, 2017.

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• I guess I will say, going back to the Judaism questions, there are mental reflexes or patterns that I think of as Jewish in my own feelings about mysticism and theology.Franz Kafka is someone I very much revere. If I believed in holy texts I'd go to him as a touchstone. Not that I read Kafka all the time at this point. In a way, this is what I most want to talk about and it's the hardest to talk about.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Thinking, Feelings, Holy

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I'm interested in the ongoing war between the individual and community. That inner dissent against whatever group is surrounding you. No one wants to cede their selfhood to a group, right? And yet no one can exactly live outside the group, either. Even the most obstinate survivalist probably lives in some telepathic communion with all the other obstinate survivalists out there in the woods.

  Jonathan Raymond

  War, Community, Groups

  "Jon Raymond’s Californian Epic". Interview with Christopher Bollen, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 1, 2017.

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• Livability has always struck me as a consolation prize.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Consolation, Consolation Prize, Prize

  "Q&A | Portland author Jon Raymond". Interview with Michael Upchurch, www.seattletimes.com. January 14, 2009.

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• The debate analysis in the media is rampant with contest analogies of war, baseball, boxing, football; you name it. Any testosterone contest imaginable is fair game.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Baseball, Football, War

  "McCain Acts Like A Tough-Guy; We Need A Gentleman" by Jon Raymond, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 28, 2008.

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• This book, 'Free bird', is so entangled with politics. I wanted to channel my own internal political monologue in some way to get it out of my brain. I'm not happy that the themes of the book have become more relevant as the publication date nears. Most of it was written in 2014 or so, before the whole Donald Trump thing began. As people paying attention know, the rise of Trump and Trumpism is not an aberration or sudden kind of phenomena.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Book, People, Political

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Technology requires knowledge and expertise more than it requires money.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Technology, Expertise

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• I would never ever condone any violence of any kind. But in the theater of fiction, blood is delightful.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Violence, Kind

  Source: therumpus.net

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• My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and his life and history were very formative to myself and my family. The almost unimaginable dichotomy between the different eras of his life always crushed my brain on some level. That this guy who was shoveling carob chips out of a barrel and restocking yogurt popsicles could also have those numbers on his arm. It was an inconceivable juxtaposition. His experience was the main window for our family into any kind of social consciousness, or sense of history, or politics, even though a lot of it went unsaid.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Holocaust, Guy, Brain

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I grew up with very little religious training. Actually, like, none. I think what Jewishness I felt as a kid stemmed almost entirely from this atrocity in our family tree.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Religious, Kids, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

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• We moved up to Oregon when I was eight, and I think the radical absence of Jewish life here might have strangely made me feel more Jewish. It's a contextual thing I guess.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Thinking, Absence, Radical

  Source: therumpus.net

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• As a book person and a movie person, I feel Jewish. My Dad was more Buddhist than anything, and on the West Coast I've often had the impression that Jews become Buddhists. I think, if anything, my religion has more to do with California consciousness, vibrations and energy. My wife isn't Jewish. There's nothing ceremonial going on at our house, I mean, occasionally a candle gets lit. But, definitely, my Judaism is an ongoing relationship, one that remains to be consummated.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Buddhist, Dad, Book

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I think these large bureaucratic institutions are created in some way explicitly to inoculate anyone from actual responsibility, to create a much more diffuse and blameless kind of society.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Responsibility, Thinking, Kind

  Source: therumpus.net

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