Source: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
Quotes from book
Still Life with Woodpecker
Still Life With Woodpecker is the third novel by Tom Robbins, concerning the love affair between an environmentalist princess and an outlaw. The novel encompasses a broad range of topics, from aliens and redheads to consumerism, the building of bombs, romance, royalty, the Moon, and a pack of Camel cigarettes. The novel continuously addresses the question of "how to make love stay" and is sometimes referred to as "a post-modern fairy tale".
Leigh-Cheri to Bernard, in Phase III, Ch. 46.
Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
Context: I’m not quite twenty, but, thanks to you, I’ve learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn’t that be the way to make love stay?
“People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve. (Bernard Mickey Wrangle, p 99)”
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker
“Brilliantly, ecstatically, irrepressibly. This is the way to burn”
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
Context: "This is the way to burn," the fuse seemed to be saying to the more docile, slow-witted candlewick. "Brilliantly, ecstatically, irrepressibly. This is the way to burn."
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker
“Society had a crime problem. It hired cops to attack crime. Now society has a cop problem.”
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
“There's no point in saving the world if it means losing the moon.”
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker
“There are only two mantras… yum and yuk. Mine is yum.”
Phase II, Ch. 21.
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
Context: If you're honest, you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you're forced to separate what is right from what is merely legal. This puts you metaphysically on the run. America is full of metaphysical outlaws.
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker
“Something has got to hold it together. I'm saying my prayers to Elmer, the Greek god of glue.”
Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
