Raymond Williams Quotes

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Quotes About Raymond Williams

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The total effect of Orwell's work is an effect of paradox. He was a humane man who communicated an extreme of inhuman terror; a man committed to decency who actualised a distinctive squalor. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
The gap between our feelings and our social observation is dangerously wide. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
What is often being argued, it seems to me, in the idea of nature is the idea of man; and this not only generally, or in ultimate ways, but the idea of man in society, indeed the ideas of kinds of societies. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
If Gissing is less compassionately observant than Mrs Gaskell, less overtly polemical than Kingsley, still The Nether World and Demos would be sympathetically endorsed by either of them, or by their typical readers. Yet Gissing does introduce an important new element, and one that remains significant. He has often been called 'the spokesman of despair,' and this is true in both meanings of the phrase. Like Kingsley and Mrs Gaskell, he writes to describe the true conditions of the poor, and to protest against those brute forces of society which fill with wreck the abysses of the nether world. Yet he is also the spokesman of another kind of despair: the despair born of social and political disillusion. In this he is a figure exactly like Orwell in our own day, and for much the same reason. Whether one calls this honesty or not will depend on experience. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
My whole point is to say that we can better understand the persistence and the durability of saturating hegemonic systems like culture when we realize that their internal constraints upon writers and thinkers were productive, not unilaterally inhibiting. It is this idea that Gramsci, certainly, and Foucault and Raymond Williams in their very different ways have been trying to illustrate. ~ Edward W. Said
Raymond Williams quotes by Edward W. Said
Once we begin to speak of men mixing their labour with the earth, we are in a whole world of new relations between man and nature, and to separate natural history from social history becomes extremely problematic. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
It doesn't take a literary detective, scanning the passage above, to notice that he is partly saying of Orwell what Orwell actually says about Gissing. This half-buried resentment can be further noticed when Williams turns to paradox. I have already insisted that Orwell contains opposites and even contradictions, but where is the paradox in a 'humane man who communicated an extreme of inhuman terror'? Where is the paradox in 'a man committed to decency who actualized a distinctive squalor'? The choice of verbs is downright odd, if not a little shady. 'Communicated'? 'Actualised'? Assuming that Williams means to refer to Nineteen Eighty-Four in the first case, which he certainly does, would it not be more precise to say that Orwell 'evoked' or even 'prefigured' or perhaps simply 'described' an extreme of inhuman terror? Yet that choice of verb, because more accurate, would be less 'paradoxical.' Because what Williams means to imply, but is not brave enough to say, is that Orwell 'invented' the picture of totalitarian collectivism.

As for 'actualising' a distinctive squalor, the author of that useful book Keywords has here chosen a deliberately inexact term. He may mean Nineteen Eighty-Four again - he is obsessed with the 'gritty dust' that infests Orwell's opening passage - or he may mean the depictions of the mean and cramped (and malodorous) existence imposed on the denizens of Wigan Pier. But to 'actualise' such squalor is either to make it real - no contradictio ~ Christopher Hitchens
Raymond Williams quotes by Christopher Hitchens
If from poetry we expect a succession of signals for the release of miscellaneous private emotion we are likely to find Tears, Idle Tears valuable. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
There are in fact no masses," said sociologist Raymond Williams, "there are only ways of seeing people as masses."11 ~ Jeff Jarvis
Raymond Williams quotes by Jeff Jarvis
Most works of art are effectively treated as commodities and most artists, even when they justly claim quite other intentions, areeffectively treated as a category of independent craftsmen or skilled workers producing a certain kind of marginal commodity. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
Williams, having awarded Orwell the title of exile, immediately replaces it with the description 'vagrant'. A vagrant will, for example, not be reassured or comforted by Williams's not-very-consoling insistence that '"totalitarian" describes a certain kind of repressive social control, but, also, any real society, any adequate community, is necessarily a totality. To belong to a community is to be a part of a whole, and, necessarily, to accept, while helping to define, its disciplines.' In other words, Williams is inviting Orwell and all of us to step back inside the whale! Remember your roots, observe the customs of the tribe, recognise your responsibilities. The life of the vagrant or exile is unwholesome, even dangerous or deluded. The warmth of the family and the people is there for you; so is the life of the 'movement.' If you must criticize, do so from within and make sure that your criticisms are constructive.

This rather peculiar attempt to bring Orwell back into the fold is reinforced by this extraordinary sentence: 'The principle he chose was socialism, and Homage to Catalonia is still a moving book (quite apart from the political controversy it involves) because it is a record of the most deliberate attempt he ever made to become part of a believing community.' I leave it to any reader of those pages to find evidence for such a proposition; it is true that Orwell was very moved by the Catalan struggle and by the friends he made in the course of it. But h ~ Christopher Hitchens
Raymond Williams quotes by Christopher Hitchens
The idea of nature contains, though often unnoticed, an extraordinary amount of human history. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
What breaks capitalism, all that will ever break capitalism, is capitalists. The faster they run the more strain on their heart. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
The real dividing line between things we call work and the things we call leisure is that in leisure, however active we may be, we make our own choices and our own decisions. We feel for the time being that our life is our own. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
Making another effort to be paradoxical, Williams decides to identify Orwell as an instance of 'the paradox of the exile'. This, which he also identified with D. H. Lawrence, constituted an actual 'tradition', which, in England:

attracts to itself many of the liberal virtues: empiricism, a certain integrity, frankness. It has also, as the normally contingent virtue of exile, certain qualities of perception: in particular, the ability to distinguish inadequacies in the groups which have been rejected. It gives, also, an appearance of strength, although this is largely illusory. The qualities, though salutary, are largely negative; there is an appearance of hardness (the austere criticism of hypocrisy, complacency, self-deceit), but this is usually brittle, and at times hysterical: the substance of community is lacking, and the tension, in men of high quality, is very great.

This is quite a fine passage, even when Williams is engaged in giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Orwell's working title for Nineteen Eighty-Four was 'The Last Man in Europe,' and there are traces of a kind of solipsistic nobility elsewhere in his work, the attitude of the flinty and solitary loner. May he not be valued, however, as the outstanding English example of the dissident intellectual who preferred above all other allegiances the loyalty to truth? Self-evidently, Williams does not believe this and the clue is in the one word, so seemingly innocuous in itself, ~ Christopher Hitchens
Raymond Williams quotes by Christopher Hitchens
Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
Country' and 'city' are very powerful words, and this is not surprising when we remember how much they seem to stand for in the experience of human communities. In English, 'country' is both a nation and a part of a 'land'; 'the country' can be the whole society or its rural area. In the long history of human settlements, this connection between the land from which directly or indirectly we all get our living and the achievements of human society has been deeply known. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
Students need to learn how to unlearn those elements of a market driven society that deform their sense of agency, reducing them to simply consumers or even worse to elements of a disposable population. So we need to understand who controls the means of public education and the larger forms of what Raymond Williams called the cultural apparatuses of permanent education both in terms of the dangers they pose and the possibilities they harbor. ~ Henry Giroux
Raymond Williams quotes by Henry Giroux
We can overcome division only by refusing to be divided. ~ Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Williams
A wolf is clever-clever-clever, and they are as faithful as a debt unpaid. ~ Tad Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Tad Williams
I have a very family-like connection to hip-hop, which is why it frustrates me so much. ~ Saul Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Saul Williams
And that was when it really came home to me what I was about to do. I was going to rob a bank, committing the additional crime of arson in the process, and if I got caught I'd go to prison.
Well, I thought, go on selling second-hand jalopies for another forty years and maybe somebody'll give you a testimonial and a forty-dollar watch. ~ Charles Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Charles   Williams
He had hidden in a city filled with black glass. But its surfaces made poor reflections, clinging jealously to their color as if they would reveal terrible pictures if they were allowed to clear. ~ Conrad Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Conrad Williams
Anyone living, especially your peers, is a threat. You're judging them, they're judging you. This sort of criticism is as close to human nature as you can get. That can be a good thing sometimes. Jealously, rancor, competition, those can be good things in art. But it mostly puts you in a dangerous and disadvantageous position, and one that just takes away from you so much. ~ Raymond Pettibon
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Pettibon
The depths cleared again. Something moved in them that was not a board. It rose slowly, with an infinitely careless languor, a long dark twisted something that rolled lazily in the water as it rose. It broke surface casually, lightly, without haste. I saw wool, sodden and black, a leather jerkin blacker than ink, a pair of slacks. I saw shoes and something that bulged nastily between the shoes and the cuffs of the slacks. I saw a wave of dark blond hair straighten out in the water and hold still for a brief instant as if with a calculated effect, and then swirl into a tangle again. ~ Raymond Chandler
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Chandler
Falling in love was like falling off a cliff. It felt pretty much like flying until you hit the ground. ~ Cinda Williams Chima
Raymond Williams quotes by Cinda Williams Chima
The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me. ~ Raymond Chandler
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Chandler
If you don't like Scottish weather, wait 30 minutes, and it is likely to change. ~ Raymond Bonner
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Bonner
It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written.
A chance word, upon paper, may destroy the world. Watch carefully and erase, while the power is still yours, I say to myself, for all that is put down, once it escapes, may rot its way into a thousand minds, the corn become a black smut, and all libraries, of necessity, be burned to the ground as a consequence.
Only one answer: write carelessly so that nothing that is not green will survive. ~ William Carlos Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by William Carlos Williams
Everyone forgets comedians are actors. There's no question about it. A Robin Williams cannot say the same line every night for 40 weeks and make it sound fresh unless he's doing an acting job. ~ Joan Rivers
Raymond Williams quotes by Joan Rivers
Mrs. Panabaker is ten years older than God and probably smarter. She stops into the offices every other Thursday to tell my dad what she didn't like about his sermon the previous Sunday. She makes fudge-covered marshmallows at Christmas time and force feeds them to anyone too slow to escape. I've never seen her out of a suit dress and floral scarf, and on Sundays she always wears a matching hat. Last week was a salmon-colored number, and her hat was draped in fake fruit. I wanted to try to eat one of the grapes just to see what she'd do, but I value my life. ~ A.C. Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by A.C. Williams
The truth about most people: they will never accept you as you are. You'll need to change. And I'm begging you, change. But only for yourself, and even if that means by yourself. Never bend for them. Don't calm your heart, don't scale back these dreams. Stay strange, lost your mind, finger fuck the rules, burn bridges if you must, and follow your insanity. Feel everything, it's telling you something. People will love you in bits and pieces, and hate you just the same. You'll always be too much for some, and not enough for others. They will never believe in you, as much as you do. And understand that you will never be a success in the eyes of a failure. There's a magic in you that most others can't believe in, simply because they haven't made sense of themselves. But you're magic, still. You've been that way all along. And even if the world changed everything in you, that much would always be true. ~ J. Raymond
Raymond Williams quotes by J. Raymond
There's no better feeling than just going in and just working with someone and what comes out is something that the world knows about. ~ Pharrell Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Pharrell Williams
A sense of humor has been linked with longevity. It is a possibility that the mental attitude reflected in a lively sense of humor is an important factor predisposing some people toward long life. ~ Raymond Moody
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Moody
God gets you to the plate, but once your there your on your own. ~ Ted Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Ted Williams
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
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond B. Fosdick
Victim mentality only creates helplessness, the most maddening, miserable and upsetting of mental states. In fact, it is commonly reported that nothing triggers madness like a sense of helplessness. It is a cousin of paranoia, a sense that the world is out to get you, that there is some opposition, some rivalry between you and the world. This is a warped, twisted mentality that offers no benefits, and, more importantly, is manifestly false. ~ Armstrong Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Armstrong Williams
I don't carry a purse when I fly because I have my Hello Kitty carry-on. I'm the biggest adult supporter. ~ Venus Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Venus Williams
The past is something for you to learn from and the future is something that you hope is going to happen, but I'm always speaking to my actual fans in present tense. ~ Katt Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Katt Williams
Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. ~ Raymond Chandler
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Chandler
You can't know what you don't know. You can't know about things you have yet to discover. ~ Jonathan Raymond
Raymond Williams quotes by Jonathan Raymond
I don't kill humans any longer."
Relief crept over my body like a drug. I hadn't realized how tightly I'd been holding myself, like a wind-up toy that had been tightened to the point of the spring snapping. "Oh," I managed faintly. He waited while I absorbed his explanation, allowing me to think in silence.
"So," I remarked slowly, "do you get all the, uh, vitamins you need that way?" It was the first thought to cross my mind. ~ D.S. Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by D.S. Williams
I have a bit of an obsession with the 1950's and all those actors from Montgomery Clift to James Dean and Anthony Perkins. Just that whole era of Tennessee Williams to Elia Kazan. ~ Sebastian Stan
Raymond Williams quotes by Sebastian Stan
My religious background is that my mother is a Christian Dior Scientist ~ Robin Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Robin Williams
You're not going to try to guess my name?" She smiled.
"I just realized that you weren't my janitor today. What do you have? ~ Whitney Gracia Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Whitney Gracia Williams
Suddenly, without any real change in her, she ceased to be beautiful. She looked merely like a woman who would have been dangerous a hundred years ago, and twenty years ago daring, but who today was just Grade B Hollywood. ~ Raymond Chandler
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Chandler
Shut the eff up,' Aaron said. Only he said the REAL swear, the REAL word. ~ Carol Lynch Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Carol Lynch Williams
If you're interested in expanding your network, you can't go wrong with Twitter. You don't need to be a celebrity to have fun and grow your network with Twitter. ~ Raymond Arroyo
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Arroyo
I met my wife and, for the next ten years, we did no films at all. She did the first movie and then I did several after. My first movie was written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Kazan and was called Baby Doll. ~ Eli Wallach
Raymond Williams quotes by Eli Wallach
CHILDHOOD IS THAT STATE WHICH ENDS THE MOMENT A PUDDLE IS FIRST VIEWED AS AN OBSTACLE INSTEAD OF AN OPPORTUNITY ~ Michael K. Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Michael K. Williams
Dying, we tell ourselves, is like going to sleep. This figure of speech occurs very commonly in everyday thought and language, as well as in the literature of many cultures and many ages. It was apparently quite common even in the time of the ancient Greeks. ~ Raymond Moody
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I told you forever ago that I wasn't going anywhere. That there was no one else for me. No one else I wanted to love. Nothing can change that. ~ Nicole Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Nicole Williams
He wondered if she wondered if he were watching her. ~ Raymond Carver
Raymond Williams quotes by Raymond Carver
I let her clasp my hand and stare at me with her big, dark eyes. Because I know that when people comfort you, they're really just comforting themselves. ~ Katie Williams
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Louis Armstrong changed all the brass players around, but after Bird, all of the instruments had to change - drums, piano, bass, trombones, trumpets, saxophones, everything. ~ Cootie Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Cootie Williams
Don't associate yourself with toxic people. It's better to be alone and love yourself than surrounded by people that make you hate yourself. ~ Robin Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Robin Williams
You mistake my jealousy for good old-fashioned cynicism. ~ Nicole Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Nicole Williams
If I could destroy the world, don't you think I could fight off the queen of the Fells? Crow snorted. ~ Cinda Williams Chima
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George Piro, had gathered evidence that al-Qaeda had a network of adherents at American flight schools. Williams urged a nationwide investigation. He was unsurprised when headquarters took no action; thirteen years of experience had taught him that counterintelligence and counterterrorism were "bastard stepchildren" at the FBI. ~ Tim Weiner
Raymond Williams quotes by Tim Weiner
I think we're skating on surfaces. I know it in my own life - and I think that is where this frustration comes in. It's not the place we want to be, but it's the place our society requires that we be. There is no fulfillment there. So we become numbed, we become drugged, we become less than we are. And I think that we know that. ~ Terry Tempest Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Terry Tempest Williams
My friends come from many species. ~ Anthony D. Williams
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Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now ~ Hayley Williams
Raymond Williams quotes by Hayley Williams
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