Dreams From My Father reveals more about Obama than is usually known about political leaders until after theyre dead. Perhaps more than it intends, it shows his mind working, in real time, sentence by sentence, in what feels like a private audience with the reader. – Jonathan Raban
Over emphatic negatives always suggest that what is being denied may be what is really being asserted. – Jonathan Raban
Critics? Dont talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I dont. – Jonathan Raban
The only book by a modern president that bears serious comparison with Obamas Dreams From My Father is Jimmy Carters short campaign autobiography, Why Not the Best?, published in 1975. – Jonathan Raban
Unless youre living on the street and surviving on a diet of discarded turkey drumsticks, theres no point in being gloomy. Weve spent too long trying to cheer ourselves up by spending money on brightly coloured things we dont really need. Weve stopped using our imaginations. – Jarvis Cocker