Tom Robbins Quotes

page 3

“Those people who recognise that imagination is reality's master, we call sages, and those who act upon it, we call artists.”

“Of the Seven Dwarfs, the only one who shaved was Dopey. That should tell us something about the wisdom of shaving.”

“Cries for help are frequently inaudible.”

“Some marriages are made in heaven,
Mine was made in Hong Kong, by the same people who make those little rubber pork chops they sell in the pet department at Kmart.”

“Minds were made for blowing.”

“Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.”

“Reality whistles a different tune underwater.”

“Be your own flying saucer! Rescue yourself!”

“keep your eye on the ball, even if you cannot see the ball.”

“Faith is believing in something you know isn't true.”

“When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing.”

“The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.”

“Are you aware that rushing toward a goal is a sublimated death wish? It's no coincidence we call them 'deadlines.”

“Madame Lily Devalier always asked "Where are you?" in a way that insinuated that there were only two places on earth one could be: New Orleans and somewhere ridiculous.”

“Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots.”

“Nobody quite knew what to make of the moon any more.”

“There are people in this world who can wear whale masks and people who cannot, and the wise know to which group they belong.”

“Whatever goes wrong can be used to your advantage, providing it goes wrong enough.”

“Brilliantly, ecstatically, irrepressibly. This is the way to burn”

“It is what it is. You are what you it. There are no mistakes.”

“Birth and death were easy. It was life that was hard.”

“Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization.”

“Every day is Judgement Day. Always has been. Always will be.”

“I rather like the smell of absurdity in the morning.”

“It's hard to say who's a greater threat to the world, an ambitious CEO with a big ad budget or a crafty cleric with an obsolete Bible verse.”

“Life is like a stew, you have to stir it frequently, or all the scum rises to the top.”

“I mean that gods do not limit men. Men limit men.”

“Whether a man is a criminal or a public servant is purely a matter of perspective.”

“Would you complain because a beautiful sunset doesn't have a future or a shooting star a payoff? And why should romance 'lead anywhere'? Passion isn't a path through the woods. Passionthe woods.”

“He who jokes in the executioners face can be destroyed, but never defeated.”

“Plato did claim that the unexamined life was not worth living. Oedipus Rex was not so sure.”

“In the beginning was the thing. And one thing led to another.”

“The more advertising I see, the less I want to buy.”

“His voice wore no pants.”

“Summer had come to sit on New York's face.”

“Outlaws, like lovers, poets, and tubercular composers who cough blood onto piano keys, do their finest work in the slippery rays of the moon.”

“Purpose! Purposes are for animals with a hell of a lot more dignity than the human race! Just hop on that strange torpedo and ride it to wherever it's going”

“The loony legacy of money was that the arithmetic by which things were measured had become more valuable than the things themselves.”

“I'll bet I'm as old as you are."
"I'm older than Sanskrit."
"Well, I was waitress at the Last Supper."
"I'm so old I remember when McDonald's had only sold a hundred burgers."
"You win.”

“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.”

“It is more important to be free than to be happy.”

“As any car freak will tell you, the old models are the most beautiful, even if they aren't the most efficient. People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve.”

“And who ever said the world was fair, little lady? Maybe death is fair, but certainly not life. We must accept the unfairness as proof of the sublime flux of existence, the capricious music of the universe- and go on about our tasks”

“Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. It's not the tobacco we're after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning.”

“They'd be no threat to me. I have a black belt in Haiku. And a black vest in the cleaners.”

“I’m acquainted with a, uh, gentleman who claims that the extent to which a society focuses on the needs of its lowest common denominator is the extent to which that society’ll be mired in mediocrity. Whereas, if we would aim the bulk of our support at the brightest, most talented, most virtuous instead, then they would have the wherewithal to solve a lot of our problems, to uplift the whole culture, enlighten it or something, so that eventually there wouldn’t be so many losers and weaklings impeding evolution and dragging the whole species down. He claims that martyrs like you just perpetuate human misery by catering to it. He believes individuals have to take responsibility for their own lives and accept the consequences of their choices.”

“The Middle Ages hangs over history's belt like a beer belly. It is too late now for aerobic dancing or cottage cheese lunches to reduce the Middle Ages. History will have to wear size 48 shorts forever.”

“The Devil doesn't make us do anything. The Devil, for example, doesn't make us mean. Rather, when we're mean, we make the Devil. Literally. Our actions create him. Conversely, when we behave with compassion, generosity, and grace, we create God in the world.”

“There's no such thing as security in this life, sweetheart; and the sooner you accept that fact, the better off you'll be. The person who strives for security will never be free. The person who believes that she's found security will never reach paradise. What she mistakes for security is purgatory. You know what purgatory is, Gwendolyn? It's the waiting room, it's the lobby. Not only does she have the wrong libretto, she's stuck in the lobby where she can't see the show.”