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Tom Robbins Quotes - Page 13

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Zippers are primal and modern at the very same time. On the one hand, your zipper is primitive and reptilian, on the other, mechanical and slick. A zipper is where the Industrial Revolution meets the Cobra Cult.

Zippers are primal and modern at the very same time. On the one hand, your zipper is primitive and reptilian, on the other, mechanical and slick. A zipper is where the Industrial Revolution meets the Cobra Cult.

Hands, Zippers, Revolution

Tom Robbins (2003). “Jitterbug Perfume”, p.299, Bantam

Laws, it is said, are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistics on the number of lives that are clobbered yearly as a result of laws: outmoded laws; laws that found their way onto the books as a result of ignorance, hysteria or political haymaking; antilife laws; biased laws; laws that pretend that reality is fixed and nature is definable; laws that deny people the right to refuse protection. A survey such as that could keep a dozen dull sociologists out of mischief for months.

Book, Ignorance, Reality

I travel in gardens and bedrooms, basements and attics, around corners, through doorways and windows, along sidewalks, over carpets, down drainpipes, in the sky, with friends, lovers, children and heros; perceived, remembered, imagined, distorted and clarified.

Children, Hero, Garden

Tom Robbins (2003). “Another Roadside Attraction”, p.30, Bantam

In this world that God (or Mother Nature) created, it is always hazard and novelty-hazard and novelty-which assert themselves, thereby rendering notions of fixity absurd. Incongruously enough, however, when we allow ourselves to fully accept uncertainty, to embrace and cultivate it even, then we actually can begin to feel within ourselves the presence of an Absolute. The person who cannot welcome ambiguity cannot welcome God.

Mother, Hazards, World

Modern Romans insisted that there was only one god, a notion that struck Alobar as comically simplistic. Worse, this Semitic deity was reputed to be jealous (what was there to be jealous of if there were no other gods?), vindictive, and altogether foul-tempered. If you didn't serve the nasty fellow, the Romans would burn your house down. If you did serve him, you were called a Christian and got to burn other people's houses down.

Christian, Jealous, People

"Jitterbug Perfume". Book by Tom Robbins, 1984.

You've heard of people calling in sick. You may have called in sick a few times yourself. But have you ever thought about calling in well? It'd go like this: You'd get the boss on the line and say, "Listen, I've been sick ever since I started working here, but today I'm well and I won't be in anymore." Call in well.

People, Sick, Boss

You have to eat your technique. Digest it. It's in your blood, but you're not concerned with it anymore.

Blood, Technique, Concerned

There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay? Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.

Making Love, Answers, Serious

Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.5, Bantam

From the air, Vatican City looked like a marble Monopoly set. The Church owned all the property from Broadwalk to Illinois Avenue, has three hotels on every lot, and no matter how often it tossed the dice you just knew it would never land on Go to Jail, it would be forever passing Go and collecting $200.

Funny, Humorous, Air

Tom Robbins (2003). “Another Roadside Attraction”, p.220, Bantam

Cultural institutions by and large share one primary objective: herd control. Even when ostensibly benign, their propensity for manipulation, compartmentalization, standardization and suppression of potentially disruptive behavior or ideas, has served to freeze the evolution of consciousness practically in its tracks.

Ideas, Track, Manipulation

"The Syntax of Sorcery: An Interview with Tom Robbins". Interview with Tony Vigorito, realitysandwich.com. June 6, 2012.

Some praise me, some blame me. I go the other way. Sometimes those things that attract the most attention to us are the things which afford us the greatest privacy

Loner, Attention, Way

almost any object, including this book you hold, can turn up as Exhibit A in a murder trial.

Book, Trials, Murder

Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.80, Bantam

Poetry, the best of it, is lunar and is concerned with the essential insanities. Journalism is solar (there are numerous newspapers named The Sun, none called The Moon) and is devoted to the inessential.

Moon, Insanity, Essentials

Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.73, Bantam

We say we are earthlings, not waterlings. Our blood is closer to seawater than our bones to soil, but thats no matter. The sea is the cradle we all rocked out of, but its to dust that we go. From the time that water invented us, we began to seek out dirt. The further we separate ourselves from the dirt, the further we separate ourselves from ourselves. Alienation is a disease of the unsoiled.

Dust, Blood, Sea

Tom Robbins (2003). “Another Roadside Attraction”, p.86, Bantam

I can't remember exactly the first thing I wrote, but one of the stories, was about a pilot whose plane crashed on a desert island, and the only other life on the island was a brown cow with yellow spots. The cow had... to survive, had taught itself to eat and get nutriments from sand. I guess, I've always been interested in adaptability and taking whatever life hands you and running with it.

Running, Yellow, Islands

what bothers me today is the lack of, well, i guess you'd call it authentic experience. so much is a sham. so much is artificial, synthetic, watered-down, and standardized...we're standardizing people, their goals, their ideas. the sham is everywhere.

Ideas, People, Goal

Once one pays some attention to something, then you begin to see evidence of it everywhere.

Attention, Pay, Evidence

There's birth, there's death, and in between there's maintenance.

Funny Life, Maintenance, Birth

"Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates". Book by Tom Robbins, 2001.

Toys are made in heaven, batteries are made in hell.

Heaven, Batteries, Toys

Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses.

Queens, Christianity, Muse

Tom Robbins (2003). “Jitterbug Perfume”, p.62, Bantam

It's good to bear in mind that like it or not, enlightenment has always been, even in a golden age, pretty much limited to an elite.

Mind, Age, Enlightenment

"The Syntax of Sorcery". Interview with Tony Vigorito, realitysandwich.com. June 6, 2012.

Ultimately, the roast turkey must be regarded as a monument to Boomer's love.

Thanksgiving, Turkeys, Monument

Tom Robbins (2003). “Skinny Legs and All”, p.24, Bantam

I journey to the east, where I have been told, there are men who have taught death some manners.

Journey, Men, East

Tom Robbins (2003). “Jitterbug Perfume”, p.62, Bantam

The oyster was an animal worthy of New Orleans, as mysterious and private and beautiful as the city itself. If one could accept that oysters build their houses out of their lives, one could imagine the same of New Orleans, whose houses were similarly and resolutely shuttered against an outside world that could never be trusted to show proper sensitivity toward the oozing delicacies within.

Beautiful, Animal, New Orleans

The odor of frying bacon, sausage links, and ham tiptoed on little pig feet all the way to the north end of the second floor. Inevitably, the odor made her simultaneously ravenous and nauseated. She hated the sensation. It reminded her of pregnancy. Every Sunday morning, Leigh-Cheri awoke to a pan of fried fear.

Morning, Fear, Pregnancy

Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.21, Bantam

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