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Jonathan Raymond

Jonathan Raymond is an American writer living in Portland, Oregon.

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Jonathan Raymond Quotes

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.

Believed, Feelings, Holy, Patterns, Thinking

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.

Family, Felt, Kids, Like, Religious, Thinking

Technology requires knowledge and expertise more than it requires money.

Expertise, Knowledge, Money, Requires, Technology

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!

Cameras, Develop, Maintain, Real, Work, Writing

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.

Baby, Fun, Like, Rock, Singer, Writing

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.

Book, Buddhist, Ceremonial, Dad, Definitely, House

Livability has always struck me as a consolation prize.

Consolation, Consolation Prize, Livability, Prize, Struck

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.

Bureaucratic, Kind, Responsibility, Society, Thinking, Way

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

Condone, Delightful, Fiction, Kind, Violence

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

Irony, Openly, Speak, Spiritual, Spirituality, Type

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.

Brain, Dichotomy, Formative, Guy, Holocaust, Window

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.

Feelings, Jobs, Know, Leaving, Things

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.

Baseball, Contest, Debate, Fair, Football, War

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.

Attention, Bird, Book, People, Phenomena, Political

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

Reason

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.

Community, Exactly, Groups, Inner, Survivalist, War

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.

Banks, Bills, Directly, Greedy, Issues, Money

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.

Absence, Jewish, Radical, Think, Thinking

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.

Computer, Drama, Read, Thinking, Times, Years