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Tom Robbins Quotes - Page 16

All Quotes Adventure Age Anxiety Art Authority Balance Beach Belief Birth Children Choices Christianity Confusion Crime Culture Dancing Desire Destiny Doubt Earth Ego Evidence Evil Evolution Fear Fun Funny Genius Giving God Grace Heart Heaven Hell Home House Humanity Ignorance Imagination Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Jesus Journey Joy Kissing Language Laughter Legacy Life Love Lust Lying Magic Making Love Manipulation Mediocrity Moon Morning Passion Personality Perspective Philosophy Prayer Purpose Rain Reading Reality Risk Running Sacrifice School Seven Soul Suffering Today Understanding Universe Violence Wall Water Writing

If little else, the brain is an educational toy. Why it may be a frustrating play thing - one whose finer points recede just when you think you are mastering them - it is nonetheless perpetually fascinating, frequently

If little else, the brain is an educational toy. Why it may be a frustrating play thing - one whose finer points recede just when you think you are mastering them - it is nonetheless perpetually fascinating, frequently surprising, occasionally rewarding, and it comes already assembled. [...] Alas! the brain is a toy that plays games of its own. Its very most favorite game is the one-thing-leads-to-another game.

Philosophy, Educational, Thinking

This may be said for the last quarter of the twentieth century: the truism that if we want a better world we will have to be better people came to be acknowledge, if not thoroughly understood, by a significantly large minority.

Philosophy, Educational, People

Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.23, Bantam

Maybe most people were fundamentally contradictory. The real people at any rate.

Real, People, Contradictory

Tom Robbins (2003). “Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates”, p.141, Bantam

Solace? That's why God made fermented beverages and the blues.

Beverages, Made, Solace

Tom Robbins (2003). “Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates”, p.263, Bantam

If we're ever going to get the world back on a natural footing, back in tune with natural rhythyms, if we're going to nurture the Earth and protect it and have fun with it and learn from it - which is what mothers do with their children - then we've got to put technology (an aggressive masculine system) in its proper place, which is that of a tool to be used sparingly, joyfully, gently and only in the fullest cooperation with nature. Nature must govern technology, not the other way around.

Mother, Children, Fun

"Even Cowgirls Get the Blues". Book by Tom Robbins, 1976.

Society had a crime problem. It hired cops to attack crime. Now society has a cop problem.

Problem, Cop, Crime

Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.28, Bantam

In general, I've found female protagonists more intriguing to work with than males. I cherish women and have always preferred their company, reveling in their perfumes, their contours, their finer-grained sensibilities, lunar intuitions, nurturing instincts and relatively unfettered emotions--although I'm certainly not unaware that there are plenty of neurotic, uptight, stupid women in the world.

Stupid, Intuition, Males

Consider the silent repose of the sausage as compared to the aggressiveness of bacon.

Sausage, Silent, Repose

Love is dope, not chicken soup.

Dope, Love Is, Soup

Tom Robbins (2003). “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, p.160, Bantam

I've always assumed that every time a child is born, the Divine reenters the world. Okay? That's the meaning of the Christmas story. And every time that child's purity is corrupted by society, that's the meaning of the Crucifixion story. Your man Jesus stands for that child, that pure spirit, and as its surrogate, he's being born and put to death again and again, over and over, every time we inhale and exhale, not just at the vernal equinox and on the twenty-fifth of December.

Jesus, Children, Men

"Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates". Book by Tom Robbins, September 5, 2000.

People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve. (Bernard Mickey Wrangle, p 99)

Sacrifice, People, Still Life With Woodpecker

Love is very powerful, but it has limits and it's a costly mistake to spread it too thin.

Powerful, Mistake, Love Is

It is as if the soul of the continent is weeping. Why does it weep? It weeps for the bones of the buffalo. It weeps for magic that has been forgotten. It weeps for the decline of poets.It weepsfor the black people who think like white people.It weepsfor the Indians who think like settlers.It weepsfor the children who think like adults.It weepsfor the free who think like prisoners.Most of all, it weepsfor the cowgirls who think like cowboys.

Children, Thinking, Cowboy

Maybe what I admired most about John Steinbeck is that he never mortgaged his 45-acre heart for a suite in an ivory tower.

Heart, Ivory Tower, Towers

I think too much is known about me already. I think biographical information can get in the way of the reading experience. The interchange between the reader and the work. For example, I know far too much about Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. Because I know as much as I do about their personal lives, I can't read their work without this interjecting itself. So if I had it to do over, I'd probably go the way of J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon. And just stay out of it altogether and let all the focus be on the work itself and not on me.

Reading, Thinking, Focus

The principal difference between an adventurer and a suicide is that the adventurer leaves himself a margin of escape (the narrower the margin the greater the adventure)

Suicide, Adventure, Differences

Tom Robbins (2003). “Another Roadside Attraction”, p.112, Bantam

Fire is the reuniting of matter with oxygen. If one bears that in mind, every blaze may be seen as a reunion, an occasion of chemical joy.

Fire, Oxygen, Joy

Tom Robbins (2003). “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, p.57, Bantam

Christianity... is an Eastern religion.

Christianity, Eastern

It was autumn, the springtime of death. Rain spattered the rotting leaves, and a wild wind wailed. Death was singing in the shower. Death was happy to be alive. The fetus bailed out without a parachute. It landed in the sideline Astroturf, so upsetting the cheerleaders that for the remained of the afternoon their rahs were more like squeaks.

Rain, Autumn, Wind

I went to a large consolidated school in Appalachia. And I wrote the story when I was in the second grade and I took it up to the third floor to the school newspaper office that was written and edited by juniors and seniors.

Senior, School, Office

"Novelist Tom Robbins Plays Not My Job". Interview with Peter Sagal, www.npr.org. June 5, 2010.

Eighty percent of love is smell.

Love Is, Smell, Eighty

My paintings are very strange - large and empty, like walls. Just the opposite of my writing, which is rich and juicy.

Wall, Writing, Opposites

Most novelists write about twisted lives.

Writing, Novelists, Twisted

John Irving once told me he doesn't start a novel until he knows the last sentence. I said, 'My God, Irving, isn't that like working in a factory?'

Lasts, Factories, Said

I would only read the novels that people classify as 'beach books' if I were being held prisoner and the only alternative was the 'Book of Mormon.'

Beach, Book, People

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