J. Raymond Quotes

There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about.

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.

The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.

It's a simple exercise; a little logic, a little taste, and the will to cooperate.

It's strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.

I hung up. It was a good start, but it didn’t go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hidden under the desk.

Prosperity is the ability to do what you want to do at the instant you want to do it.

There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.

The most reliable appliance has simplicity and quality, does what is demanded of it, is economical to use, easy to maintain, and just as easy to repair. ...It also sells best and looks good.

It would seem that more than function itself, simplicity is the deciding factor in the aesthetic equation. One might call the process beauty through function and simplification.

You've got to work with your mistakes until they look intended. Understand?

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.

The principle of life is that life responds by corresponding; your life becomes the thing you have decided it shall be.

There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.

It all must start with an inspired, spontaneous idea.

Indecision is actually the individual’s decision to fail.

Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you're going to do a good job with it.

Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.

I can claim to have made the daily life of the 20th Century more beautiful.

I am a cigarette with a body attached to it

She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight.

Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.

Racism is the snobbery of the poor.

Honey, no offense, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.

A designer must always think about the unfortunate production engineer who will have to manufacture what you have designed; try to understand his problems.

Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow (e.g., given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone).

I find it interesting that many of the people who want to restrict fossil fuels live in well-developed countries where abundant and affordable energy is readily available.

Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.

From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.

I'm a huge fan of Cabernet and Bordeaux, and am passionate about Pinot Noir and Burgundies.

You're...writing for other writers to an extent-the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.

Good design is not an applied veneer.

Ugliness does not sell.

There are no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses

Organized crime is the dirty side of the sharp dollar.

She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.

The main goal is not to complicate the already difficult life of the consumer.

There is hardly an activity that a person can think about that does not intrinsically involve energy, most of which is currently provided by fossil fuels.

To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair inevitable.

Art comes after the fact, as a witness to certain things that have happened.

Most people go through life using up half their energy trying to protect a dignity they never had

Design is too important to be left to designers.

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.

What breaks capitalism, all that will ever break capitalism, is capitalists. The faster they run the more strain on their heart.

People will turn to you, follow you, support you only as long as they are confident that you are doing your best.

I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.

Design, vitalized and simplified, will make the comforts of civilized life available to an ever-increasing number of Americans.

In a way, all sociologists are akin to Marxists because of their inclination to settle everyone's accounts but their own.

Try and live your life the way you wish other people would live theirs.

Never place a time limit on the healing. That is dictating to the spiritual intelligence that does its perfect work when it is not impeded by your questions and false beliefs.