Ray Quotes

We act empty and innocent but we are fueled by distortions of lives led in discontent trading misfortunes cause faith is one thing that is hard to deliver it feels funny being free.

I don't typically work that late into the night in a studio, I'm more productive during the day.

Majoring in religion, listening to TV evangelists interpret the scriptures and dictate my offerings-I found my God inside myself-in every moment and piece of matter. Everything is animate.

ahhhh...organic and rich like good soil... makes me want to listen and hear it grow. the songs are honest and dimensional. it's music to my ears.

I was not going to allow myself to really believe that I was free until I was actually free.

I don't think there's any accidents in my life.

Baby get ready, get set, please don't go.

You want to keep intelligence separate from policy.

As best I can tell there was no advance warning of the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, which was the first significant foreign terrorist activity in the U.S. No tip-offs that it was coming.

Iraq is not about oil.

Fundamentalist groups like Christian Embassy have infiltrated the very top of the U.S. military and gained positions of influence in the Pentagon.

Everybody is exposed to radiation. A little bit more or a little bit less is of no consequence.

I think people are going to return to sanity when they see how ridiculous many of these charges are, and how the predictions are not borne out.

No question about that, the radicals are in charge.

I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.

Though there are still many good people out there in the world, it seems that they're vastly outnumbered by the stupid, selfish, violent ones.

I spent thirty-two years in a paper mill in southern Ohio, and before that I worked in a meatpacking plant and a shoe factory.

A lot of people get the wrong impression, think there's something romantic or tragic about hitting bottom.

When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school.

I sort of like writing about weird characters, I guess.

I was always a big reader, even when everything was bad and miserable.

Michael Koryta is an amazingly talented writer, and I rank The Prophet as one of the sharpest and superbly plotted crime novels I've read in my life.

J.R. Angelella is a truly gifted writer. Zombie is one of the smartest, strangest, and most beautifully crafted coming-of-age stories you will ever encounter.

Id always been a big reader, and I loved books, and I always thought writing would be a great way to get by in the world.

When I first started out, I was trying to write stories about nurses and lawyers and a lot of people I didn't know anything about, and they just weren't working.

I've always been a bit of a pessimist in regard to mankind.

I don't think writing fiction has changed my worldview.

I don't think I'd call [mood] a major force, but it is important as far as hitting the right notes or nuances with a character or scene.

I don't really think the outburst is recent; there have always been writers in Appalachia.

As for how I feel about any success I've had, I just feel extremely lucky. Writing is a tough racket, and there are a lot of writers out there better than me who can't seem to catch a break.

I'm always doubting my work, even when people are kind enough to say good things. I still have a hard time believing I've written some books, let alone that they've actually done pretty well.

I really have no idea what the French think of my characters, or why The Devil All the Time did so well there.

I've never heard of that anthology [Vance Randolph, Pissing in the Snow], but you can be sure I'll buy it now.

I think the biggest influence on the book, as far as the humor goes, comes, at least indirectly, from the men I worked with in the paper mill. Some of them could make a dog laugh.

I think my characters - well, at least a few of them - are hoping or searching for some kind of contact with god.

One of the reasons I write about religion is due to my own envy of people who truly feel the presence of god in their lives, good souls who believe devoutly in a supreme being and an afterlife.

I look upon [writing about religion] as a nice way to get by in this precarious world, though I've never been able to do it myself.

I started going to Ohio University when I was in my mid-thirties, ended up with an English degree when I was forty.

I'm not sure I would have ever decided to try to write when I was forty-five if I hadn't already gotten that degree [in English].

[Degree in English] gave me a little more self-confidence, to know that I'd managed to complete something like that.

I'm not sure what the proper label might be, or the most accurate one, but someone once called my stuff Southern Ohio Gothic and I thought that was fair.

Power ... was the coin of the Washington realm and, without it, you might as well file for bankruptcy.

I write novels about ordinary women who face seemingly insurmountable odds, but through courage and determination find their heart's desire.

The truth is, I just love to work. I love being on set. I love being around crews. I love being around my fellow actors. Anything that can keep that going is a joy for me.

Im always envious of the actors who get to come to work every day and really grow deep roots there, but it is really fun playing lots of different characters.

The most difficult battle you ever fight is the battle to be unique in a world that will marshal its every force to keep you the same.

Animals are wonderful, because they put you in a great emotional state.

Trying is failing with honor

Buried deep within each of us is a spark of greatness, a spark than can be fanned into flames of passion and achievement. That spark is not outside of you it is born deep within you.

All results no matter how magnificent are infinitesimal when compared to future possibility.