“The key to self-generated happiness (the only reliable kind) is the refusal to take oneself too seriously.”
"The Green Man : Tom Robbins" interviewed by Gregory Daurer, in High Times (12 June 2002).
High Times interview (2002)
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Tom Robbins 250
American writer 1932Related quotes

“Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience.”
Seulement, il faut du temps pour être heureux. Beaucoup de temps. Le bonheur lui aussi est une longue patience.
A Happy Death (1971)

(in his first-ever interview, 1991) source http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=1991&cutting=10

As quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988) by James Beasley Simpson; also quoted in Running on Empty: Meditations for Indispensable Women (1992) by Ellen Sue Stern, p. 235
Paraphrased variants: The most important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative, and the second disastrous.
Take your work seriously, but never yourself.
Source: The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), Chapter Four: "Explosives and Booby Traps".

“Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.”