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A little boy, he can play like he's a fireman or a copalthough fewer and fewer are pretending to be cops, thank Godor a deep-sea diver or a quarterback or a spaceman or a rock 'n roll star or a cowboy, or anything else glamorous and exciting (Author's note: What about a novelist, Jellybean?), and although chances are by the time he's in high school he'll get channeled into safer, duller ambitions, the great truth is, he can be any of those things, realize any of those fantasies, if he has the strength, nerve and sincere desire ... But little girls? Podner, you know that story as well as me. Give 'em doll babies, tea sets and toy stoves. And if they show a hankering for more bodacious playthings, call 'em tomboy, humor 'em for a few years and then slip 'em the bad news ... And the reality is, we got about as much chance of growing up to be cowgirls as Eskimos have got being vegetarians. By Tom Robbins Fewer Jellybean Author Godor Boy

Meditation ... dissolves the mind. It erases itself. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass. By Tom Robbins Meditation Dissolves Mind Throws Ass

There's a tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility and treat them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your soul. It's not men who limit women, it's not straights who limit gays, it's not whites who limit blacks. What limits people is lack of character. What limits people is that they don't have the fucking nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it. By Tom Robbins Limit Circumstance Tendency Today Absolve

But say you've inflated your soul to the size of a beach ball and it's soaking into the Mystery like wine into a mattress. What have you accomplished? Well, long term, you may have prepared yourself for a successful metamorphosis, an almost inconceivable transformation to be precipitated by your death or by some great worldwide eschatological whoopjamboreehoo. You may have. No one can say for sure. By Tom Robbins Mystery Mattress Inflated Soul Size

... 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 ... . Martyrs ... just perpetuate human misery by catering to it ... . Individuals have to take responsibility for their own lives and accept the consequences of their choices. By Tom Robbins Extent Society Mediocrity Focuses Lowest

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, don't you think? Ahh. Little alligators of ecstasy, that's what zippers are. Sexy, too. Now your button, a button is prim and persnickety. There's somethin' Victorian about a row o' buttons. But a zipper, why a zipper is the very snake at the gate of Eden, waitin' to escort a true believer into the Garden. Faith, I should be sewin' more zippers into me garments, for I have many erogenous zones that require speedy access. Mmm, old zipper creeper, hanging head down like the carcass of a lizard; the phantom viper that we shun in daytime and communicate with at night. By Tom Robbins Zipper Zippers Time Primal Modern

Heaven is living in your hopes and Hell is living in your fears. It's up to each individual which one he chooses. By Tom Robbins Living Hell Heaven Fears Hopes

Hi.""Honey!" exclaimed Patsy. "Good to hear your voice! Listen, I oughtta go pull my robe on 'fore we commence. You caught me nekkid as a jaybird."" 'Nekkid' or 'naked,' mama?""What's the blessed difference? Are you making Yankee fun of the way I talk? The way you used to talk?""No, no, mama, let me tell you. Naked means you just don't have any clothes on. Nekkid means you don't have any clothes on and you're fixing to get into trouble. By Tom Robbins Honey Patsy Exclaimed Nekkid Mama

If every time we choose a turd, society, at a great expense, simply allows us to redeem it for a pepperoni, then not only will we never learn to make smart choices, we will also surrender the freedom to choose, because a choice without consequences is no choice at all. By Tom Robbins Society Choose Turd Expense Simply

Can't they comprehend that not ever'thing's done for a paycheck? That sometimes you just make a thing 'cause you wanna see how it'll turn out, 'cause you have a feeling in your gut that it oughta be made? By Tom Robbins Paycheck Comprehend Thing Made Make

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. By Tom Robbins Death Autumn Springtime Astroturf Rain

The odd thing was, Dickie longed to experience that feeling. It wasn't any kind of death wish: there was not a suicidal cell in his body. rather, it seemed that the very sensation, the inner force that made Dickie's scrotum tighten, his throat constrict, and his eyeballs swim in dizziness also made him want to tumble into the precipitous void. And ultimately, his fear of longing to fall was greater, more disturbing, than his fear of falling. By Tom Robbins Dickie Feeling Odd Thing Longed

The day of the full moon, when the moon is neither increasing nor decreasing, the Babylonians called Sa-bat, meaning "heart-rest." It was believed that on this day, the woman in the moon, Ishtar, as the moon goddess was known in Babylon, was menstruating, for in Babylon, as in virtually every ancient and primitive society, there had been since the earliest times a taboo against a woman working, preparing food, or traveling when she was passing her monthly blood. On Sa-bat, from which comes our Sabbath, men as well as women were commanded to rest, for when the moon menstruated, the taboo was on everyone. Originally (and naturally) observed once a month, the Sabbath was later to be incorporated by the Christians into their Creation myth and made conveniently weekly. So nowadays hard-minded men with hard muscles and hard hats are relieved from their jobs on Sundays because of an archetypal psychological response to menstruation. By Tom Robbins Moon Babylonians Babylon Sabat Day

So you think that you're a failure, do you? Well, you probably are. What's wrong with that? In the first place, if you've any sense at all you must have learned by now that we pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free. By Tom Robbins Fail Failure Mediocre Place Defeats

A Hamburger is warm and fragrant and juicy. A hamburger is soft and nonthreatening. It personifies the Great Mother herself who has nourished us from the beginning. A hamburger is an icon of layered circles, the circle being at once the most spiritual and the most sensual of shapes. A hamburger is companionable and faintly erotic. The nipple of the Goddess, the bountiful belly-ball of Eve. You are what you think you eat. By Tom Robbins Hamburger Juicy Warm Fragrant Great

If you could buckle your Bugs Bunny wristwatch to a ray of light, your watch would continue ticking but the hands wouldn't move. That's because at the speed of light there is no time. Time is relative to velocity. At high speeds, time is literally stretched. Since light is the ultimate in velocity, at light-speed time is stretched to its absolute and becomes static. Albert Einstein figured that one out. By Tom Robbins Bugs Bunny Time Light Move

The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men. We all have the same enemy. The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized. By Tom Robbins Enemy White Arab Black Jew

One of the other musicians said that the tambourine is a female due to the fact that it makes a pretty jingle and is designed to be spanked. That is the more recent, patriarchal attitude, I suppose. By Tom Robbins Spanked Musicians Tambourine Female Due

... he glanced over his shoulder at her, regarding her, as he often did before they made love, as if she were a lost continent about to be rediscovered. By Tom Robbins Love Rediscovered Glanced Shoulder Made

Dreamily the Princess stood up. "I'm not sure if I can walk," she said."Then I'll carry you.""Is that what love is?""I no longer know what love is. A week ago I had a lot of ideas. What love is and how to make it stay. Now that I'm in love, I haven't a clue. Now that I'm in love, I'm completely stupid on the subject. By Tom Robbins Love Princess Dreamily Stood Walk

Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free. By Tom Robbins Outlaw Ultimate Love Rules Make

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. Answer me that and I will ease your mind about the beginning and the end of time. Answer me that and I will reveal to you the purpose of the moon. By Tom Robbins Answer Question Stay Make Love

Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.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. By Tom Robbins Question Robbins Wrote Camus Kill

Information about time cannot be imparted in a straightforward way. Like furniture, it has to be tipped and tilted to get it through the door. If the past is a solid oak buffet whose legs must be unscrewed and whose drawers must be removed before, in an altered state, it can be upended into the entryway of our minds, then the future is a king-size waterbed that hardly stands a chance, especially if it needs to be brought up in an elevator.Those billions who persist in perceiving time as the pursuit of the future are continually buying waterbeds that will never make it beyond the front porch or the lobby. And if man's mission is to reside in the fullness of the present, then he's got no space for the waterbed, anyhow, not even if he could lower it through a skylight. By Tom Robbins Information Time Imparted Straightforward Waterbed

The prevalence of social ugliness made commitment to physical beauty all the more essential. And the very presence in life of double-wide mobile homes, Magic Marker graffiti, and orange shag carpeting had the effect of making ills such as poverty, crime, repression, pollution and child abuse seem tolerable. In a sense, beauty was the ultimate protest, and, in that it generally lasted longer than an orgasm, the ultimate refuge. The Venus de Milo screamed "No!" at evil, whereas the Spandex stretch pant, the macrame plant holder were compliant with it. By Tom Robbins Essential Prevalence Social Ugliness Made

Now tequila may be the favored beverage of outlaws but that doesn't mean it gives them preferential treatment. In fact, tequila probably has betrayed as many outlaws as has the central nervous system and dissatisfied wives. Tequila, scorpion honey, harsh dew of the doglands, essence of Aztec, crema de cacti; tequila, oily and thermal like the sun in solution; tequila, liquid geometry of passion; Tequila, the buzzard god who copulates in midair with the ascending souls of dying virgins; tequila, firebug in the house of good taste; O tequila, savage water of sorcery, what confusion and mischief your sly, rebellious drops do generate! By Tom Robbins Tequila Outlaws Treatment Favored Beverage

But do we know how to make love stay?'I can't even think about it. The best I can do is play it day by day. By Tom Robbins Stay Make Love Day Play

Rules such as "Write what you know," and "Show, don't tell," while doubtlessly grounded in good sense, can be ignored with impunity by any novelist nimble enough to get away with it. There is, in fact, only one rule in writing fiction: Whatever works, works. By Tom Robbins Show Write Sense Works Doubtlessly

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. By Tom Robbins Alobar Romans Modern Simplistic Insisted

In addition, Dr. Dannyboy has suggested a fifth element: positive thinking. Pointing out that their breathing, bathing, dining and screwing brought Alobar and Kudra much physical pleasure, and that an organism steeped in pleasure is an organism disposed to continue, he has said that the will to live cannot be overestimated as a stimulant to longevity. Indeed Dr. Dannyboy goes so far as to claim that ninety percent of all deaths are suicides. Persons, says Wiggs, who lack curiosity about life, who find minimal joy in existence, are all too willing, subconsciously, to cooperate with- and attract- disease, accident and violence. By Tom Robbins Dannyboy Addition Element Positive Thinking

What I'm saying is simply that every totalitarian society, no matter how strict, has had its underground. In fact, two undergrounds. There's the underground involved in political resistance and the underground involved in preserving beauty and funwhich is to say, preserving the human spirit. By Tom Robbins Underground Society Strict Simply Totalitarian

There is a particularly unattractive and discouragingly common affliction called tunnel vision, which for all the misery it causes, ought to top the job list at the World Health Organization. Tunnel vision is a disease in which perception is restricted by ignorance and distorted by vested interest. Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego. It is complicated by exposure to politics. When a good dea is run through the filters and compressors of ordinary tunnel vision, it not only comps out reduced in scale and value but in its new dogmatic configuration produces effects the opposite of those for which it originally was intended. By Tom Robbins Vision Organization Tunnel World Health

It seems like with you everything leads back to the subject of death.""Sure and show me the person's road that does not lead to death. we try to divert our attention, to pretend 'tisn't so, but the very air we breathe is vulture's breath. Please don't be insinuatin' your man is morbid. I dwell on death in order to defeat it. By Tom Robbins Death Leads Lead Back Subject

Silence is a mirror. So faithful, and yet so unexpected, is the relection it can throw back at men that they will go to almost any length to avoid seeing themselves in it, and if ever its duplicating surface is temporarily wiped clean of modern life's ubiquitous hubbub, they will hasten to fog it over with such desperate personal noise devices as polite conversation, hummin, whistling, imaginary dialogue, schizophrenic babble, or, should it come to that, the clandestine cannonry of their own farting. Only in sleep is silence tolerated, and even there, most dreams have soundtracks. Since meditation is a deliberate descent into deep internal hush, a mute stare into the ultimate looking glass, it is regarded with suspicion by the nattering masses; with hostility by buisness interests (people sitting in silent serenity are seldom consuming goods); and with spite by a clergy whose windy authority it is seen to undermine and whose bombastic livelihood it is perceived to threaten. By Tom Robbins Mirror Silence Hummin Whistling Faithful

Take now the clockworks ... The clockworks, being genuine and not much to look at, don't generate the drama of an Earth-tilt or a flying saucer, nor do they seem to offer any immediate panacea for humanity's fifty-seven varieties of heartburn. But suppose that you're one of those persons who feels trapped, to some degree, trapped matrimonially, occupationally, eductionally or geographically, or trapped in something larger than all those; trapped in a system, or what you might descrbie as an "incresingly deadening technocracy" or a "theater of paranoia and desperation" or something like that. Now, if you are one of those persons ... wouldn't the very knowledge that there are clockworks ticking away behind the wallpaper of civilization, unbeknownst to leaders, organizers and managers (the President included), wouldn't that knowledge, suggesting as it does the possibility of unimaginable alternatives, wouldn't that knowledge be a bubble bath for your heart? By Tom Robbins Clockworks Trapped Knowledge Persons Earthtilt

In Seattle, I soon found that my radical ideas and aesthetic explorations - ideas and explorations that in Richmond, Virginia, might have gotten me stoned to death with hush puppies - were not only accepted but occasionally applauded. By Tom Robbins Virginia Seattle Richmond Ideas Puppies

When we're incomplete, we're always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and onseries polygamyuntil we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter. By Tom Robbins Incomplete Searching Complete Relationship Unfulfilled

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 By Tom Robbins Purpose Purposes Race Animals Hell

A lot of life boils down to the question of whether a person is going to be able to realize his fantasies, or else end up surviving only through compromises he can't face up to. The way I figure it, Heaven and Hell are right here on Earth. Heaven is living in your hopes and Hell is living in your fears. It's up to each individual which one he chooses. - Bonanza Jellybean By Tom Robbins Hell Heaven Fantasies Lot Life

If our style is masterful, if it is fluid and at the same time complete, then we can re-create ourselves, or rather, we can re-create the Infinite Goof within us. We can live on top of content, float above the predictable responses, social programming and hereditary circuitry, letting the bits of color and electricity and light filter up to us, where we may incorporate them at will into our actions. That's what the voices said. They said that content is what a man harbors but does not parade. And I love a parade. By Tom Robbins Recreate Infinite Goof Masterful Complete

America is a nation of 270 million people: 100 million of them are gangsters, another 100 million are hustlers, 50 million are complete lunatics, and every single one of us is secretly in show business. Isn't that fabulous? By Tom Robbins Million America People Gangsters Hustlers

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 25th of December. By Tom Robbins Divine Time Child World Assumed

The glue that holds the natural world together appears to be a harmonious balance of opposites: day and night, light and dark, winter and summer, liquid and solid, acidic and alkaline, male and female, wave and trough, proton and electron, etc. There prevails in our reality an explicit duality that represents an implicit unity (the "oneness" about which I've previously babbled), and the line of separation between those things just named is as thin as it is necessary: yang rubs up against yin, yin against yang, distinct but mutually supportive. By Tom Robbins Opposites Day Night Light Dark

There are times when we can feel destiny close around us like a fist around a doorknob. Sure, we can resist. But a knob that won't turn, a door that sticks and never budges, is a nuisance to the gods. The gods may kick in the jamb. Worse, they may walk away in disgust, leaving us to hang dumbly from our tight hinges, deprived of any other chance in life to swing open into unnecessary risk and thus into enchantment. By Tom Robbins Doorknob Times Feel Destiny Close

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. By Tom Robbins Honest Sooner Confront Legal Forced

Listen, I've been sick ever since I started working here, but today I'm well and I won't be in anymore. By Tom Robbins Listen Anymore Sick Started Working

Very few people can write in a crowd. This is a very solitary occupation. I have known people more talented than me who never made it. And the primary reason was always that they couldn't stand to be alone for several hours a day. Any writer worth anything has mastered the art. The art of solitude. By Tom Robbins Crowd Write People Art Occupation

We, with our propensity for murder, torture, slavery, rape, cannibalism, pillage, advertising jingles, shag carpets, and golf, how could we be seriously considered as the perfection of a four-billion-year-old grandiose experiment? perhaps as a race, we have evolved as far as we are capable, yet that by no means suggests that evolution has called it quits. in all likelihood, it has something beyond human on the drawing board. we tend to refer to our most barbaric and crapulous behavior as "inhuman," whereas, in point of fact, it is exactly human, definitively and quintessentially human, since no other creature habitually indulges in comparable atrocities. this negates neither our occasional virtues nor our aesthetic triumphs, but if a being at least a little bit more than human is not waiting around the bend of time then evolution has suffered a premature ejaculation. By Tom Robbins Torture Slavery Rape Cannibalism Pillage

I'll follow him to the ends of the earth,' she sobbed. Yes, darling. But the earth doesn't have any ends. Columbus fixed that. By Tom Robbins Sobbed Earth Follow Ends Darling

A true believer may worship Jehovah, Allah, or Brahma, the supernatural beings who allegedly created all life; a true believer may slavishly adhere to a dogma designed theoretically to improve life; yet for life itself - its pleasures, wonders, and delights - he or she holds minimal regard. Music, chess, wine, card games, attractive clothing, dancing, meditation, kites, perfume, marijuana, flirting, soccer, cheeseburgers, any expression of beauty, and any recognition of genius or individual excellence: each of those things has been severely condemned and even outlawed by one cadre of true believers or another in modern times. By Tom Robbins Allah Jehovah Brahma True Life

We seem to face an enemy who, no matter how many times we win, will best us in the end. He has so many allies: time, disease, boredom, stupidity, religious quackery, and bad habits. By Tom Robbins Win End Disease Boredom Stupidity

As long as a population can be induced to believe in a supernatural hereafter, it can be oppressed and controlled. People will put up with all sorts of tyranny, poverty, and painful treatment if they're convinced that they'll eventually escape to some resort in the sky where lifeguards are superfluous and the pool never closes. Moreover, the faithful are usually willing to risk their skins in whatever military adventure their government may currently be promoting. By Tom Robbins Controlled Long Population Induced Supernatural

Love makes the world go 'round, it's true, but lust stops the world in its tracks; love renders bearable the passage of time, lust causes time to stand still, lust kills time, which is not to say that it wastes it or whiles it aimlessly away but rather that it annihilates it, cancels it, extirpates it from continuum; preventing, while lasts, any lapse into the tense and shabby woes of temporal society, lust is the thousand-pound odometer needle on the dashboard of the absolute. By Tom Robbins Lust Love Time World Round

Jerusalem was capital of southern Israel, known then as Judah. Isn't it true that there's always a rivalry between north and south? North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam, Northern and Southern Ireland, Yankees and Rebels, uptown and downtown. Somebody please tell me why that is? Maybe southerners get too much sun, like Mr. Sock over there, frying his threads, and northerners don't get enough (although I hardly think northern Israel a cool spot in the shade), but southern peoplestropical and downtown typesalways seem to lean toward decadence, whereas uptown, in the north, progress is favored. Decadence and progress obviously are at odds. By Tom Robbins Judah North South Southern Israel

Get yourself in that intense state of being next to madness. Keep yourself in, not necessarily a frenzied state, but in a state of great intensity. The kind of state you would be in before going to bed with your partner. That heightened state when you're in a carnal embrace: time stops and nothing else matters. You should always write with an erection. Even if you're a woman. By Tom Robbins State Madness Intense Intensity Necessarily

Mockingbirds are the true artists of the bird kingdom. Which is to say, although they're born with a song of their own, an innate riff that happens to be one of the most versatile of all ornithological expressions, mocking birds aren't content to merely play the hand that is dealt them. Like all artists, they are out to rearrange reality. Innovative, willful, daring, not bound by the rules to which others may blindly adhere, the mockingbird collects snatches of birdsong from this tree and that field, appropriates them, places them in new and unexpected contexts, recreates the world from the world. For example, a mockingbird in South Carolina was heard to blend the songs of thirty-two different kinds of birds into a ten-minute performance, a virtuoso display that serve no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art. By Tom Robbins Kingdom Birds Artists True Mockingbird

Alas, Gulietta, this was an American frog of the last quarter of the twentieth century, a time when wishing apparently no longer led to anything, and Leigh-Cheri eventually named it Prince Charming after that son-of-a-bitch who never comes though. By Tom Robbins Gulietta Alas American Prince Charming

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. By Tom Robbins Work Vonnegut Norman Mailer Kurt

If it weren't for Phoenician blinds, it'd be curtains for all of us. By Tom Robbins Phoenician Blinds Curtains

You wonder if God doesn't have an answering machine to screen out the prayers of the venal and the boring? And in which category has he placed you? By Tom Robbins God Boring Answering Machine Screen

She needed help, but God was in a meeting whenever she rang. By Tom Robbins God Rang Needed Meeting

Birth, copulation, and death. Fine. In truth, however, there were at least two other things in which Amanda strongly believed. Namely: magic and freedom. By Tom Robbins Birth Copulation Death Fine Amanda

The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously. By Tom Robbins Universe Attention Person Resents Cheer

A sneeze travels at a peak velocity of two hundred miles per hour. A burp, more slowly; a fart, slower yet. But a kiss thrown by fingers- its departure is sudden, its arrival ambiguous, and there is no source that can state with authority what speeds are reached in its flight. By Tom Robbins Hour Sneeze Travels Peak Velocity

Don't let yourself be victimized by the age you live in. It's not thetimes that will bring us down, any more than it's society. When youput the blame on society, then you end up turning to society for thesolution. Just like those poor neurotics at the Care Fest. There's atendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsiblity and treatthem as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay withyour soul. It's not men who limit women, it's not straights who limitgays, it's not whites who limit black. what limits people is lack ofcharacter. What limites people is that they don't have the fuckingnerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.Yuck ... It's a wonderful time to be alive. As long as one has enoughdynamite. pg. 116-117 By Tom Robbins Society Victimized Age Live Limit

True stability results when presumed order and presumed disorder are balanced. By Tom Robbins True Balanced Presumed Stability Results

More immediately, by waxing soulful you will have granted yourself the possibility of ecstatic participation in what the ancients considered a divinely animated universe. And on a day to day basis, folks, it doesn't get any better than that. By Tom Robbins Immediately Universe Folks Waxing Soulful

Perhaps everything was connected to everything, in a discernible if nebulous way, and if one might only trace the fibers and filaments of those connections, one might ... One might what? Observe the Grand Design? Untangle all the puppet strings and discover whose hands (or claws) are pulling them? End the ancient search for order and meaning in the universe? By Tom Robbins Connections Connected Discernible Nebulous Trace

Reality is subjective, and there's an unenlightened tendency in this culture to regard something as 'important' only if 'tis sober and severe. Sure and still you're right about your Cheerful Dum, only they're not so much happy as lobotomized. But your Gloomy Smart are just as ridiculous. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so very seriously. Your truly happy people, which is to say, your people who truly like themselves, they don't think about themselves very much. Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin' on himself and start payin' attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form o' self-indulgence. By Tom Robbins Important Reality Subjective Tis Severe

Sissy Hankshaw once taught a parakeet to hitchhike. By Tom Robbins Hankshaw Sissy Hitchhike Taught Parakeet

Civilization is a mutant beast that emerged from the shattered egg of primitive stability.-Sissy Hankshaw By Tom Robbins Sissy Hankshaw Civilization Stability Mutant

This is the room of the wolfmother wallpaper. By Tom Robbins Wallpaper Room Wolfmother

Romantic love is ambulatory by nature, and it must be anchored in strata more stable than lust if it's to last. Marital disintegration is accelerated when only one, or neither, party is grounded and growing, or growing at different rates or in different directions. As I became increasingly interested in cultural matters, matters of the mind and spirit, my teenage bride waxed more and more materialistic. By Tom Robbins Romantic Nature Love Ambulatory Anchored

Bones are patient. Bones never tire nor do they run away. When you come upon a man who has been dead many years, his bones will still be lying there, in place, content, patiently waiting, but his flesh will have gotten up and left him. Water is like flesh. Water will not stand still. It is always off to somewhere else; restless, talkative, and curious. Even water in a covered jar will disappear in time. Flesh is water. Stones are like bones. Satisfied. Patient. Dependable. Tell me, then, Alobar, in order to achieve immortality, should you emulate water or stone? Should you trust your flesh or your bones? By Tom Robbins Bones Water Flesh Patient Alobar

I'm always astonished when readers suggest that I must write my novels while high on pot or (God forbid!) LSD. Apparently, there are people who confuse the powers of imagination with the effects of intoxication. Not one word of my oeuvre, not one, has been written while in an artificially altered state. Unlike many authors, I don't even drink coffee when I write. No coffee, no cola, no cigarettes. There was a time when I smoked big Havana cigars while writing, not for the nicotine (I didn't inhale) but as an anchor, something to hold on to, I told myself, to keep from falling over the edge of the earth. Eventually, I began to wonder what it would be like to take that fall. So one day I threw out the cigars and just let go. Falling, I must say, has been exhilarating though I may change my mind when I hit bottom. By Tom Robbins God Forbid Astonished Readers Suggest

Dip a slice of bread in batter. That's September: yellow, gold, soft and sticky. Fry the bread. Now you have October: chewier, drier, streaked with browns. The day in question fell somewhere in the middle of the french toast process. By Tom Robbins Dip Batter Slice September Bread

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. By Tom Robbins Vatican City Monopoly Air Set

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. By Tom Robbins Appalachia School Large Consolidated Seniors

Do you hear, darlink, what the new dishwasher wants to be called? An 'underwater ceramics engineer,' already! Abu doesn't believe his ears. He doesn't realize what a big shot he used to be in the kitchen. Ha! By Tom Robbins Darlink Hear Called Dishwasher Underwater

In fiction, when you paint yourself into a corner, you can write a pair of suction cups onto the bottoms of your shoes and walk up the wall and out the skylight and see the sun breaking through the clouds. In nonfiction, you don't have that luxury. By Tom Robbins Fiction Corner Clouds Paint Write

Our purpose is to consciously, deliberately evolve toward a wiser, more liberated and luminous state of being; to return to Eden, make friends with the snake, and set up our computers among the wild apple trees. Deep down, all of us are probably aware that some kind of mystical evolution - a melding into the godhead, into love - is our true task. Yet we suppress the notion with considerable force because to admit it is to acknowledge that most of our political gyrations, religious dogmas, social ambitions and financial ploys are not merely counterproductive but trivial. Our mission is to jettison those pointless preoccupations and take on once again the primordial cargo of inexhaustible ecstasy. Or, barring that, to turn out a good thin-crust pizza and a strong glass of beer. By Tom Robbins Eden Consciously Deliberately Wiser Make

I do not fear death. I resent it. Everything must die, apparently, and I am no exception. But I want to be consulted. You know what I mean? 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. I have a new passion, my darlings, a passion for being myself, and for being more than previously has been manifested for a single lifetime. I am determined to die at my own convenience. Therefore, I journey to the east, where, I have been told, there are men who have taught death some manners. By Tom Robbins Death Fear Die Passion Apparently

On the mainland, a rain was falling. The famous Seattle rain. The thin, gray rain that toadstools love. The persistent rain that knows every hidden entrance into collar and shopping bag. The quiet rain that can rust a tin roof without the tin roof making a sound in protest. The shamanic rain that feeds the imagination. The rain that seems actually a secret language, whispering, like the ecstasy of primitives, of the essence of things. By Tom Robbins Rain Mainland Falling Seattle Tin

White folks have controlled New Orleans with money and guns, black folks have controlled it with magic and music, and although there has been a steady undercurrent of mutual admiration, an intermingling of cultures unheard of in any other American city, South or North; although there has prevailed a most joyous and fascinating interface, black anger and white fear has persisted, providing the ongoing, ostensibly integrated fete champetre with volatile and sometimes violent idiosyncrasies. By Tom Robbins Black Folks Controlled South North

(1) When a situation has become too frustrating, a quandary too persistently insolvable; when dealing with the issue is generating chronic discontent, infringing on freedom, and inhibiting growth, it may be time to quit beating one's head against the wall, reach for a big fat stick of metaphoric dynamite, light the fuse, and blast the whole unhappy business nine miles past oblivion. (2) After making an extreme effort, after pulling out all the stops, one is still unable to score Tibetan peach pie, take it as a signal to relax, grin, pick up a fork, and go for a slice of the apple. By Tom Robbins Frustrating Insolvable Discontent Infringing Freedom

The theme of corporate stories (and millions drink them in every day) seldom varies: to be happy you must consume, to be special you must conform. Absurd, obviously, yet our identities have become so fragile, so elusive, that we seem content to let advertisers provide us with their version of who we are, to let them recreate us in their image: a cookie-cutter image based on market research, shallow sociology, and insidious lies. By Tom Robbins Stories Day Seldom Varies Consume

All things considered, I've learned more from talking to painters than talking to writers. Not that painters are smarter than writers, such is seldom the case, but in conversation writers are inclined to waste an inordinate amount of time either bragging or bellyaching about reviews and royalties, complaining about their publishers, or dissing other authors. Painters, being equally insecure, can likewise come across as boring and bitchy it's tough being creative in a materialistic society but since they labor not in vineyards of verbiage but upon ice floes of visual images, they tend to function with fewer inhibitions than the wordsmiths when it comes to vocally exploring and expressing ideas. Since no one judges their speech, comparing it to their written work, they don't feel so acutely the weight of language. By Tom Robbins Talking Writers Painters Considered Things

There was no burger so soggy that he would not eat it. No tequila so mean that he would not drink it. No car so covered with birdshit and rust that he would not drive it around town (and if it were a convertible, he'd have the top down, even in rain, even in snow). There was no flag he would not desecrate, no true believer he would not mock, no song he wouldn't sign off-key, no dental appointment he wouldn't break, no child he wouldn't do tricks for, no old person he wouldn't help in from the cold, no moon he wouldn't lie under ... By Tom Robbins Burger Soggy Eat Tequila Drink

Turn a mountain upside down, you have a woman. Turn a woman upside down, you have a valley. Turn a valley upside down, you get folk music. By Tom Robbins Turn Upside Woman Mountain Valley

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 emotionsalthough I'm certainly not unaware that there are plenty of neurotic, uptight, stupid women in the world. By Tom Robbins General Males Found Female Protagonists

It's a privilege to love someone, to truly love them; and while it's paradisaical if she or he loves you back, it's unfair to demand or expect reciprocity. We should consider ourselves luck, honored, blessed that we possess the capacity to feel tenderness of such magnitude and be grateful even when that love is not returned. Love is the only game in which we win even when we lose. By Tom Robbins Love Back Reciprocity Privilege Paradisaical

Their kiss was like a paper airplane landing on the moon. By Tom Robbins Moon Kiss Paper Airplane Landing

But man by his nature is an unnatural animal. If any creature stands a chance of defeating death, it is man. By Tom Robbins Animal Man Nature Unnatural Death

Meditation," said his teacher, "hasn't got a damn thing to do with anything, 'cause all it has to do with is nothing. Nothingness. Okay? It doesn't develop the mind, it dissolves the mind. Self-improvement? Forget it, baby. It erases the self. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass. What good is it? Good for nothing. Excellent for nothing. Yes, Lord, but when you get down to nothing, you get down to ultimate reality. It's then and exactly then that you're sensing the true nature of the universe, you're linked up with the absolute Absolute, son, and unless you're content with blowing smoke up your butt all your life, that there's the only place to be. By Tom Robbins Meditation Teacher Damn Thing Mind

You have taught us much. Come with us and join the movement.""This movement of yours, does it have slogans?" inquired the Chink."Right on!" they cried. And they quoted him some."Your movement, does it have a flag?" asked the Chink."You bet!" and they described their emblem."And does your movement have leaders?""Great leaders.""Then shove it up your butts," said the Chink. "I have taught you nothing. By Tom Robbins Chink Movement Taught Great Chink

Much more than an entertaining set of exaggerated facts, fiction is a metaphoric method of describing, dramatizing and condensing historical events, personal actions, psychological states and the symbolic knowledge encoded within the collective unconscious; things, events and conditions that are otherwise too diffuse and/or complex to be completely digested or appreciated by the prevailing culture. By Tom Robbins Things Events Facts Fiction Describing

There's always the same amount of good luck and bad luck in the world. If one person doesn't get the bad luck, somebody else will have to get it in their place. There's always the same amount of good and evil, too. We can't eradicate evil, we can only evict it, force it to move across town. And when evil moves, some good always goes with it. But we can never alter the ratio of good to evil. All we can do is keep things stirred up so neither good nor evil solidifies. That's when things get scary. Life is like a stew, you have to stir it frequently, or all the scum rises to the top. By Tom Robbins Luck Good Evil Bad Amount

Funny how we think of romance as always involving two, when the romance of solitude can be ever so much more delicious and intense. By Tom Robbins Funny Intense Romance Involving Solitude

Sounds travel through space long after their wave patterns have ceased to be detectable by the human ear: some cut right through the ionosphere and barrel on out into the cosmic heartland, while others bounce around, eventually being absorbed into the vibratory fields of earthly barriers, but in neither case does the energy succumb; it goes on forever - which is why we, each of us, should take pains to make sweet notes. By Tom Robbins Sounds Ear Heartland Eventually Barriers

Passion isn't a path through the woods. Passion is the woods. It's the deepest, wildest part of the forest; the grove where the fairies still dance and obscene old vipers snooze in the boughs. Everybody but the most dried up and dysfunctional is drawn to the grove and enchanted by its mysteries, but then they just can't wait to call in the chain saws and bulldozers and replace it with a family-style restaurant or a new S and L. That's the payoff, I guess. Safety. Security. Certainty. Yes, indeed. Well, remember this, pussy latte: we're not involved in a 'relationship,' you and I, we're involved in a collision. Collisions don't much lend themselves to secure futures ... By Tom Robbins Passion Woods Path Grove Involved

My comic sense, although deliberately Americanized, is, in its intent, much closer related to the crazy wisdom of Zen monks and the goofy genius of Taoist masters than it is to, say, the satirical gibes on Saturday Night Live. It has both a literary and a metaphysical function. By Tom Robbins Americanized Live Zen Taoist Saturday

The Divine was expansive, but religion was reductive. Religion attempted to reduce the Divine to a knowable quantity with which mortals might efficiently deal, to pigeonhole it once and for all so that we never had to reevaluate it. With hammers of cant and spikes of dogma, we crucified and crucified again, trying to nail to our stationary altars the migratory light of the world. By Tom Robbins Divine Expansive Reductive Religion Crucified

The camel has a big dumb ugly hump. But in the desert, where prettier, more streamlined beasts die quickly of thirst, the camel survives quite nicely. As legend has it, the camel carries its own water, stores it in its stupid hump. If individuals, like camels, perfect their inner resources, if we have the power within us, then we can cross any wasteland in relative comfort and survive in arid surroundings without relying on the external. Often, moreover, it is our "hump" - that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable - that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes. By Tom Robbins Hump Camel Big Dumb Ugly

You may tell the greatest lies and wear a brilliant disguise, but you can't escape the eyes of the one who sees right through you. By Tom Robbins Disguise Greatest Lies Wear Brilliant

Our society gives its economy priority over health, love, truth, beauty, sex and salvation; over life itself. Whatsoever is given precedence over life will take precedence over life, and will end in eliminating life. Since economics, at its most abstract level, is the religion of our people, no noneconomic happening, not even one as potentially spectacular as the Second Coming, can radically alter the souls of our people. By Tom Robbins Life Love Truth Beauty Health

There were no mail-order catalogues in 1492. Marco Polo's journal was the wish book of Renaissance Europe. Then, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and landed in Sears' basement. Despite all the Indians on the escalator, Columbus' visit came to be known as a discovery. By Tom Robbins Mailorder Catalogues Europe Polo Renaissance

I finish the book so I can see how it's going to end. I write that first sentence, and if it's the right first sentence, it leads to the right second sentence and three years later you have a 500-page manuscript, but it really is like going on a trip, going on a journey. It's a voyage. By Tom Robbins Sentence End Finish Book Manuscript

But, Foley, my lad, it isn't beauty per se that makes wire-walking Zen or makes it art. It's the extremity of the risks that are assumed by each exquisite gesture, each impossible somersault. Here's a more extreme version of the dangerous beauty bullfights used to possess before the matadors became preening cowards and stacked the desk against the beasts. We only rise above mediocrity when there's something at stake, and I mean something more consequential than money or reputation. The great value of a high-wire act is that it has no practical value. The fact that so much skill and effort and courage can be directed into something so ostensibly useless is what makes it useful. That's what affords it the power to lift us out of context and carry us-elsewhere. By Tom Robbins Foley Zen Makes Lad Art

Champagne was discovered by a Catholic monk," said Bernard. "Took one swallow and burst out of his cellar yelling, 'I'm drinking stars, I'm drinking stars!' Tequila was invented by a bunch of brooding Indians. Into human sacrifice and pyramids. Somewhere between champagne and tequila is the secret history of Mexico, just as somewhere between beef jerky and Hostess Twinkies is the secret history of America. Or aren't you in the mood for epigrams? By Tom Robbins Bernard Catholic Stars Monk Drinking

Well, there's one thing to be said for money. It can make you rich. By Tom Robbins Money Thing Rich Make

Love is private and primitive and a bit on the funky and frightening side. I think of the Luna card in the Tarot deck: some strange, huge crustacean, its armor glistening and its pinchers wiggling, clatters out of a pool while wild dogs howl at a bulging moon. Underneath the hearts and flowers, love is loony like that. Attempts to housebreak it, to refine it, to dress the crabs up like doves and make them sing soprano always result in thin blood. You end up with a parody. By Tom Robbins Love Side Private Primitive Bit

Comedy is deemed inferior to tragedy primarily because of the social prevalence of narcissistic pathology. In other words people who are too self important to laugh at their own frequently ridiculous behavior have vested interest in gravity because it supports their illusions of grandosity. By Tom Robbins Comedy Pathology Deemed Inferior Tragedy

And then the rains came. They came down from the hills and up from the sound. And it rained a sickness. And it rained a fear. And it rained an odor. And it rained a murder. And it rained dangers and pale eggs of the beast. Rain poured for days, unceasing. Flooding occurred. The wells filled with reptiles. The basements filled with fossils. Mossy-haired lunatics roamed the dripping peninsulas. Moisture gleamed on the beak of the raven. Ancient Shaman's rained from their homes in dead tree trunks, clacked their clamshell teeth in the drowned doorways of forests. Rain hissed on the freeway. It hissed at the prows of fishing boats. It ate the old warpaths, spilled the huckleberries, ran into the ditches. Soaking. Spreading. Penetrating. And it rained an omen. And it rained a poison. And it rained a pigment. And it rained a seizure. By Tom Robbins Rained Rain Filled Hissed Sound

If little else, the brain is an educational toy.The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it, too. Sometime they'd rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner from the way they play with theirs. The result is, a few games out of a toy department of possibilities are universally and endlessly repeated. If you don't play some people's game, they say that you have "lost your marbles," not recognizing that, while Chinese checkers is indeed a fine pastime, a person may also play dominoes, chess, strip poker, tiddlywinks, drop-the-soap or Russian roulette with his brain. By Tom Robbins Play Educational Toythe Problem Possessing

If New Orleans is not fully in the mainstream of culture, neither is it fully in the mainstream of time. Lacking a well-defined present, it lives somewhere between its past and its future, as if uncertain whether to advance or to retreat. Perhaps it is its perpetual ambivalence that is its secret charm. Somewhere between Preservation Hall and the Superdome, between voodoo and cybernetics, New Orleans listens eagerly to the seductive promises of the future but keeps at least one foot firmly planted in its history, and in the end, conforms, like an artist, not to the world but to its own inner beingever mindful of its personal style. By Tom Robbins Mainstream Fully Orleans Culture Time

Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it in, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route. By Tom Robbins Individuality Peculiar Station Security Society

The whole universe is a complex of rhythms," mused Amanda. "We each of us feel a need to identify our bodily rhythms with those of the cosmos. The sea is the grand agency of rhythm. The grain-tops in the wind, the atoms that orbit are rhythmic. The uterus, which is a strong muscular organ, contracts with the birth of a baby - the rhythmic contractions, in fact, are the important motivations for the baby to emerge into the world. Rhythm is how it all begins. By Tom Robbins Amanda Rhythms Rhythm Mused Universe

The minute you land in New Orleans, something wet and dark leaps on you and starts humping you like a swamp dog in heat, and the only way to get that aspect of New Orleans off you is to eat it off. That means beignets and crayfish bisque and jambalaya, it means shrimp remoulade, pecan pie, and red beans with rice, it means elegant pompano au papillote, funky file z'herbes, and raw oysters by the dozen, it means grillades for breakfast, a po' boy with chowchow at bedtime, and tubs of gumbo in between. It is not unusual for a visitor to the city to gain fifteen pounds in a weekyet the alternative is a whole lot worse. If you don't eat day and night, if you don't constantly funnel the indigenous flavors into your bloodstream, then the mystery beast will go right on humping you, and you will feel its sordid presence rubbing against you long after you have left town. In fact, like any sex offender, it can leave permanent psychological scars. By Tom Robbins Orleans Heat Minute Land Wet

Live the beauty or your own reality. By Tom Robbins Live Reality Beauty

To diminish the worth of women, men had to diminish the worth of the moon. They had to drive a wedge between human beings and the trees and the beasts and the waters, because trees and beasts and waters are as loyal to the moon as to the sun. They had to drive a wedge between thought and feeling ... At first they used Apollo as the wedge, and the abstract logic of Apollo made a mighty wedge, indeed, but Apollo the artist maintained a love for women, not the open, unrestrained lust that Pan has, but a controlled longing that undermined the patriarchal ambition. When Christ came along, Christ, who slept with no female ... Christ, who played no musical instrument, recited no poetry, and never kicked up his heels by moonlight, this Christ was the perfect wedge. Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses. By Tom Robbins Diminish Worth Wedge Christ Apollo

Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism. The catch is, mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence. Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed. Or, at least diminished. By Tom Robbins Mysticism Religion Institutionalized Institutionalization Catch

Both money and art powdered as they are with the romance and poetry of the age are magic. Rather money is magic art is magik. Money is stagecraft slight of hand a bag of clever tricks. Art is a plexus of forces and influences that act upon the senses by means of practical yet permanently inexplicable secret links. Admittedly the line between the two can be as thin as a dime. By Tom Robbins Money Art Magic Powdered Romance

Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. By Tom Robbins Prometheus Stealing Home Smoker Embodiment

In referring to her earlier statement that he had was not her type because he was "a dollar short when it came to maturity and a day late when it came to peace." I may have been wrong about that," she conceded. "You are a complicated man, but happily complicated. You have found a way to be at home with the world's confusion, a way to embrace the chaos rather than struggle to reduce it or become its victim. It's all part of the game to you, and you are delighted to play. In that regard, you may have reached a more elevated plateau of harmony than ... ummph. By Tom Robbins Peace Referring Earlier Statement Type

As you are surely aware, our planet is turning on its axis around and around in space. It turns slowly, however, making one complete rotation only every twenty-four hours; and that's a good thing isn't it? because if our world turned as fast as Gracie's room appeared to be turning, the sun would be either rising or setting every fifteen minutes, astronomers would be as woozy as rodeo clowns, and it'd be nearly impossible to keep our meatballs from rolling out of our spaghetti. By Tom Robbins Aware Space Surely Planet Axis

Among our egocentric sad-sacks, despair is as addictive as heroin and more popular than sex, for the single reason that when one is unhappy one gets to pay a lot of attention to oneself. Misery becomes a kind of emotional masturbation. By Tom Robbins Sadsacks Despair Sex Oneself Egocentric

(a hangover without a head to torment is like a philanthropist without an institution to endow), By Tom Robbins Endow Hangover Head Torment Philanthropist

The pervasive brutality in current fiction - the death, disease, dysfunction, depression, dismemberment, drug addiction, dementia, and dreary little dramas of domestic discord - is an obvious example of how language in exploitative, cynical or simply neurotic hands can add to the weariness, the darkness in the world. By Tom Robbins Disease Dysfunction Depression Dismemberment Dementia

In the world according to the positivist, the inspiring thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn them they're sunny side up. In the world according to the existentialist, the hopeless thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn them they're scrambled. By Tom Robbins Scrambled World Eggs Turn Thing

I can only hope that, upon learning of my imminent execution, Good Samaritans in Colorado will be moved to ship me a plump love apple from their backyard patch - and should they happen to be friendly with Hunter S. Thompson, perhaps persuade him to inject it with a little something beforehand. Hunter will know just what I mean, and trust me, it won't affect the taste of the tomato.**When I wrote those lines, Thompson was alive and blooming. Now, with his sad demise, still more color has faded out of the American scene. Where are the men today whose lives are not beige; where are the writers whose style is not gray? By Tom Robbins Good Samaritans Colorado Thompson Hunter

A person's looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what we've been handed by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. That's the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall. By Tom Robbins Choice Person Simple Truth Live

This so-called animisn that not so much the Fan Nannies but everybody else around here subscribes to. can we really just write it off as primitive superstition run amok? Do only human beings have souls, or is that a narcissistic, chauvinistic piece of self-flattery? I mean, can't we look at that great old teak tree over there or at this gulch, and see as much of the divine in them as in some ol' anthropomorphic Sunday school Boom Daddy with imaginary long gray whiskers and a platinum bathrobe? Are we capable of entertaining the possibility that there may have been a holy entity in the cross as well as on it? By Tom Robbins Fan Nannies Amok Socalled Animisn

What was that sound? That rustling noise? It could be heard in the icy North, where there was not one leaf left upon one tree, it could be heard in the South, where the crinoline skirts lay deep in the mothballs, as still and quiet as wool. It could be heard from sea to shining sea, o'er purple mountains' majesty and upon the fruited plain. What was it? Why, it was the rustle of thousands of bags of potato chips being pulled from supermarket racks; it was the rustle of plastic bags being filled with beer and soda pop and quarts of hard liquor; it was the rustle of newspaper pages fanning as readers turned eagerly to the sports section; it was the rustle of currency changing hands as tickets were scalped for forty times their face value and two hundred and seventy million dollars were waged upon one or the other of two professional football teams. It was the rustle of Super Bowl week ... By Tom Robbins Rustle Heard Sound Sea North

Like most geniuses, the Countess was a very limited person. Sigmund Freud was so ignorant of the art that Surrealist painters had to explain then- use of Freudian symbols over and over again, and he still didn't get it. Einstein never could remember to take the biscuits out of oven. Those same forces that drive a genius to create things or ideas that entertain or enlighten us often gobble so much of his personality that he has none left for the social graces (Should you invite Van Gogh to your home he might stand on your sofa in his muddy boots and pee where he pleased), and the very act of creation requires such focused concentration that vast areas of knowledge may be completely overlooked. Well, so what? There is no evidence that generalized skills are in any way superior to specialized brilliance, and certainly that sputter less little candle. Same of the mediocre mind known as "common sense" has never produced anything worth celebrating. By Tom Robbins Countess Geniuses Person Limited Freud

Summer had come to sit on New York's face. By Tom Robbins York Summer Face Sit

Heterosexual relationships seem to lead only to marriage, and for most poor dumb brainwashed women marriage is the climactic experience. For men, marriage is a matter of efficient logistics: the male gets his food, bed, laundry, TV, pussy, offspring and creature comforts all under one roof, where he doesn't have to dissipate his psychic energy thinking about them too much - then he is free to go out and fight the battles of life, which is what existence is all about.But for a woman, marriage is surrender. Marriage is when a girl gives up the fight, walks off the battlefield and from then on leaves the truly interesting and significant action to her husband, who has bargained to 'take care' of her. What a sad bum deal.Women live longer than men because they really haven't been living. Better blue-in-the-face dead of a heart attack at fifty than a healthy seventy-year old widow who hasn't had a piece of life's action since girlhood. By Tom Robbins Marriage Heterosexual Experience Relationships Lead

It doesn't matter how sensitive you are or how damn smart and educated you are, if you're not both at the same time, if your heart and your brain aren't connected, aren't working together harmoniously, well, you're just hopping through life on one leg. You may think you're walking, you may think you're running a damn marathon, but you're only on a hop trip. The connections gotta be maintained. By Tom Robbins Damn Time Connected Harmoniously Leg

The most important thing in life is style. That is the style of one s existence the characteristic mode of one s actions is basically ultimately what matters. For if man defines himself by doing then style is doubly definitive because style describes the doing. The point is this happiness is a learned condition. And since it is learned and self generating it does not depend upon external circumstances for its perpetuation. This throws a very ironic light on content. And underscores the primacy of style. It is content or rather the consciousness of content that fills the void. But the mere presence of content is not enough. It is style that gives content the capacity to absorb us to move us it is style that makes us care. By Tom Robbins Style Content Important Thing Life

The trickster's function is to break taboos, create mischief, stir things up. In the end, the trickster gives people what they really want, some sort of freedom. By Tom Robbins Taboos Create Mischief Stir Trickster

I believed in looking at people as individuals, not in groups. I hated groups; still do. And I saw particularly the university, the university artists really acted as a group. The others didn't so much, but the university people took advantage of that and behaved like a group, rather than as individuals. They had a lot of power that way. By Tom Robbins Groups Group Individuals University Believed

There were, in his opinion, drugs that diminished ego and drugs that engorged ego, which is to say, revelatory drugs and delusory drugs; and on a psychic level, at least, he favored awe over swagger. By Tom Robbins Drugs Ego Opinion Revelatory Level

He actually made damnation seem attractive. She had heard of men who rejected gods, who professed not to believe, but here was a believer who refused to grovel, a man who stood up to Shiva, to Buddha, to the gods of his own race, whoever they might be, who stood right up to them and demanded an accounting for a system in which pleasure must be paid for with pain, a system in which the only triumph over suffering was hard-won oblivion, a system that offered its captive audience little choice in matters concerning duration of performance. By Tom Robbins System Attractive Made Damnation Stood

Cowgirl Interlude (Bonanza Jellybean)She is lying on the family sofa in flannel pajamas. There is Kansas City mud on the tips and heels of her boots, boots that have yet to savor real manure. Fourteen, she knows she ought to remove her boots, yet she refuses. A Maverick rerun is on TV; she is eating beef jerky, occasionally slurping. On her upper stomach, where her pajama top has ridden up, is a small deep scar. She tells everyone, including her school nurse, that it was made by a silver bullet.Whatever the origin of the extra hole in her belly, there are unmistakable signs of gunfire int he woodwork by the closet door. It was there that she once shot up one half of an old pair of sneakers. "Self-defense," she pleaded, when her parents complained. "It was a [sic] out-law tennis shoe.Billy the Ked. By Tom Robbins Interlude Bonanza Jellybean Boots Cowgirl

Half Asleep in Frogg pajamas. By Tom Robbins Asleep Frogg Half Pajamas

Should one be shallow enough to view existence as a system of rewards and punishments, one soon learns that we pay as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. By Tom Robbins Punishments Defeats Shallow View Existence

Marx Marvelous is going to break the genius machine when he grows up. That's what everyone said. He hasn't, of course. By Tom Robbins Marvelous Marx Break Genius Machine

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. By Tom Robbins Kong Kmart Made Hong Marriages

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? By Tom Robbins Love Makes Perfect Loving People

The Ides of March. A sky-lidded night plain. A star-loaded sky. A moon without a pond to primp in. A wind without a leaf to tease. A nighthawk without a wire to rest on. A couple without a corner to turn. Her sandals, his wheels, made a popcorn-eating sound in the sand. By Tom Robbins March Ides Plain Skylidded Night

Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously. By Tom Robbins Place Consensual Flawed Trusted Work

What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make others people's decisions for them? Liberty, the very opposite of ownership and control, cannot, then, result from political action, either at the polls or at the barricades, but rather evolves out of attitude. If it results from anything, it must be levity. By Tom Robbins Politics Compulsion Preside Property Make

Every individual has to assume responsibility for his or her own actions, even the poor and the young. A social system that decrees otherwise is inviting intellectual atrophy and spiritual stagnation. By Tom Robbins Actions Young Individual Assume Responsibility

What bothers most critics of my work is the goofiness. One reviewer said I need to make up my mind if want to be funny or serious. My response is that I will make up my mind when God does, because life is a commingling of the sacred and the profane, good and evil. To try and separate them is fallacy. By Tom Robbins Goofiness Bothers Critics Work Make

Of the Seven Dwarfs, the only one who shaved was Dopey. That should tell us something about the wisdom of shaving. By Tom Robbins Dwarfs Dopey Shaved Shaving Wisdom

Hawaii once had a rat problem. Then, somebody hit upon a brilliant solution. import mongooses from India. Mongooses would kill the rats. It worked. Mongooses did kill the rats. Mongooses also killed chickens, young pigs, birds, cats, dogs, and small children. There have been reports of mongooses attacking motorbikes, power lawn mowers, golf carts, and James Michener. in Hawaii now, there are as many mongooses as there once were rats. Hawaii had traded its rat problem for a mongoose problem. Hawaii was determined nothing like that would ever happen again.How could Leigh-Cheri draw for Gulietta the appropriate analogy between Hawaii's rodents and society at large? Society had a crime problem. It hired cops to attack crime. Now society has a cop problem. By Tom Robbins Hawaii Mongooses Problem Rats Society

From the outside, my life may look chaotic, but inside I feel like some kind of monk licking an ice cream cone while straddling a runaway horse. By Tom Robbins Chaotic Horse Life Inside Feel

The trouble with the fast lane is that all the movement is horizontal. And I like to go vertical sometimes. By Tom Robbins Horizontal Trouble Fast Lane Movement

Twenty candles on a cake. Twenty Camels in a pack. Twenty months in the federal pen. Twenty shots of tequila down a young girl's gullet. Twenty centuries since Our Lord's last pratfall, and after all that time we still don't know where passion goes when it goes. By Tom Robbins Twenty Cake Candles Camels Lord

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. By Tom Robbins Lovers Perceived Remembered Imagined Bedrooms

She did know that once tattooed one could no longer expect to lie for all eternity in an orthodox Jewish cemetery. They wouldn't even bury women with pierced ears. A strange theory of mutilation from the people who invented cutting the skin off the pee-pee. By Tom Robbins Jewish Cemetery Tattooed Longer Expect

If kissing is man's greatest invention, then fermentation and patriarchy compete with the domestication of animals for the distinction of being man's worst folly, and no doubt the three combined long ago, the one growing out of the others, to foster civilization and lead Western humanity to its present state of decline. By Tom Robbins Man Western Invention Folly Ago

Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature. The air - moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh - felt as if it were being exhaled into one's face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing. By Tom Robbins September Louisiana Nature Moist Sultry

The gods have a great sense of humor, don't they? If you lack the iron and the fizz to take control of your own life, if you insist on leaving your fate to the gods, then the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked. The dull and prosaic will be granted adventures that will dice their central nervous systems like an onion, romantic dreamers will end up in the rope yard. By Tom Robbins Gods Humor Great Sense Life

There are smiles that actually travel along telephone wires, although no engineer at Bell Laboratories could explain how it works. By Tom Robbins Bell Laboratories Wires Works Smiles

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. By Tom Robbins Fire Oxygen Reuniting Matter Mind

Basically, the two churches are bound together much more intimately than most Christians think. Should the Roman Church fall, the Protestant churches won't rush in and fill the void. They will fall soon afterward. The Catholic express and the Protestant choo-choo are rolling on the same rails, and if the bridge washes out, both are destined for the gulch. In the long run, Protestants stand to lose as much from the mortality of Jesus as do the Catholics. We can't expect any support from them. Except maybe the Unitarians. They'll embrace any heresy, I understand. By Tom Robbins Christians Protestant Churches Basically Bound

The theory arrived neither full-blown, like an orphan on the doorstep, nor sharply defined, like a spike through a shoe; nor did it develop as would a photographic print, crisp images gradually emerging from a shadowy soup. Rather, it unwound like a turban, like a mummy bandage; started with the sudden loosening of a clasp, a scarab fastener, and then unraveled in awkward spirals from end to frazzled end. By Tom Robbins Fullblown Doorstep Defined Shoe Print

The party in Alobar's head, which agitation and anxiety were throwing, now was crashed by a notion: existence can be rearranged. By Tom Robbins Alobar Head Throwing Notion Existence

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. By Tom Robbins Earth Joyfully Back Natural Technology

Who knows how to make love stay?1. Tell love you are going to Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if loves stays, it can have half. It will stay.2. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a moustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning. By Tom Robbins Love Hair Stay Stays Make

To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger, imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics, beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down. These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness, egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating ketchup on cottage cheese. By Tom Robbins Mystery Soul Connection Degree Connected

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. By Tom Robbins Middle Ages Belly Hangs Belt

There is plenty of misery in the world, all right, but there is ample pleasure, as well. If a person forswears pleasure in order to avoid misery, what has he gained? ... how can you admire a human who consciously embraces the bland, the mediocre, and the safe rather than risk the suffering that disappointments can bring? ... If desire causes suffering, it may be because we do not desire wisely, or that we are inexpert at obtaining what we desire ... why not get better at fulfilling desire? I cannot believe that the most delicious things were placed here merely to test us, to tempt us, to make it the more difficult for us to achieve the grand prize - they safety of the void. To fashion of life such a petty game is unworthy of both men and gods. By Tom Robbins Misery Pleasure Desire World Plenty

On the subject of Egypt, Ellen Cherry was so vague she thought Ramses II was a jazz piano player. From that, we might conclude that she was equally dumb about jazz. By Tom Robbins Egypt Ellen Cherry Ramses Player

Oh, Marx,' Amanda sighed. 'You're so melodramatic. So what if it's this way or that way? When I was in convent school I used to stare out the windows at the clouds. I used to chase butterflies in the Mother Superior's flower patch. Those clouds and those butterflies, they didn't know secular from religiousand they didn't care.' 'I'm neither a cloud nor a butterlfy,' I snapped. 'We're all the same as clouds and butterflies. We just pretend to be something different. By Tom Robbins Marx Amanda Sighed Clouds Butterflies

On the right side-panel of the verbose and somewhat tautological box of Cheerios, it is written,If you are not satisfied with the quality and/or performance of the Cheerios in this box, send name, address, and reason for dissatisfaction - along with entire boxtop and price paid - to: General Mills, Inc., Box 200-A, Minneapolis, Minn., 55460. Your purchase price will be returned.It isn't enough that there is a defensive tone to those words, a slant of doubt, an unappetizing broach of the subject of money, but they leave the reader puzzling over exactly what might be meant by the "performance" of the Cheerios.Could the Cheerios be in bad voice? Might not they handle well on curves? Do they ejaculate too quickly? Has age affected their timing or are they merely in a mid-season slump? Afflicted with nervous exhaustion or broken hearts, are the Cheerios smiling bravely, insisting that the show must go on? By Tom Robbins Box Cheerios Inc Minneapolis Minn

What was it like in there? Inside a daisy?" My answer: "Like a cathedral made of mathematics and honey. By Tom Robbins Inside Daisy Answer Honey Cathedral

Now, in the eyes of the stars, men may be no more exalted than beasts, and kingly men no worthier than the wretched. By Tom Robbins Men Stars Beasts Wretched Eyes

The greatest men that ever live pass away unknown. they put forth no claims for themselves, establish no schools of systems in their name. they never create or stir but just melt down into love By Tom Robbins Unknown Greatest Men Live Pass

Since the Goddess always has been honored in sacred groves, it is understandable that patriarchs, then as now, leaned toward deforestation. By Tom Robbins Goddess Groves Patriarchs Leaned Deforestation

It's personal freedom, not hundred dollar bills that lights the soul's cigar. By Tom Robbins Freedom Cigar Personal Hundred Dollar

I think when I'm 80 years old, 85, hopefully, I'll be pushed around in a wheelchair by a red-headed nurse with panty outline. She'll make me little tequila sunrises and I'll read my complete works then. Then, I'll decide whether I think I've done something good or not. I'll reserve my judgment until then. By Tom Robbins Years Outline Pushed Wheelchair Redheaded

There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for. By Tom Robbins Worth Things Living Dying Killing

The ultimate end of any ideology is totalitarianism. By Tom Robbins Totalitarianism Ultimate End Ideology

My heart is a Latin American food stall and your love is a health inspector from Zurich. By Tom Robbins Zurich Latin American Heart Food

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. By Tom Robbins Cultural Objective Herd Control Compartmentalization

The rich are the most discriminated-against minority in the world. Openly or covertly, everybody hates the rich because, openly or covertly, everybody envies the rich. Me, I love the rich. Somebody has to love them. Sure, a lot o' rich people are assholes, but believe me, a lot o' poor people are assholes, too, and an asshole with money can at least pay for his own drinks. By Tom Robbins Rich Openly Covertly World Discriminatedagainst

Genius may stand on the shoulders of giants, but it stands alone. By Tom Robbins Genius Giants Shoulders Stand Stands

Love is very powerful, but it has limits and it's a costly mistake to spread it too thin. By Tom Robbins Love Powerful Thin Limits Costly

The protagonist, Amanda, discusses her sex relationship with her husband, John Paul As long as it's done with honesty and grace, John Paul doesn't mind if I go to bed with other men. Or with other girls, as is sometimes my fancy. What has marriage got to do with it? Marriage is not a synonym for monogamy any more than monogamy is a synonym for ideal love. To live lightly on the earth, lovers and families must be more flexible and relaxed. The ritual of sex releases its magic inside or outside the marital bond. I approach that ritual with as much humility as possible and perform it whenever it seems appropriate. As for John Paul and me, a strange spurt of semen is not going to wash our love away. By Tom Robbins Amanda John Paul Protagonist Discusses

Not too many years ago, the names of our perfumes bore testimony to such things. There was a popular scent called Tabu, there was Sorcery, My Sin, Vampire, Voodoo, Evening in Paris, Jungle Gardenia, Bandit, Shocking, Intimate, Love Potion, and L'Heure Bleue - The Blue Hour. Nowadays what do we find? Vanderbilt, Miss Dior, Lauren, and Armani, perfumes named after glorified tailors" - there were murmurs and gasps in the audience - "names that evoke not the poetic, the erotic, the magic, but economic status, social snobbery, and the egomania of designers. Perfumes that confuse the essence of creation with the essence of money. How much sustenance can the soul receive from a scent entitled Bill Blass? By Tom Robbins Ago Things Perfumes Years Bore

The ones who're so upset about everybody not being the same, about competition, about standards of quality, about art objects having 'auras' around them, they're usually people with average abilities and average minds. And below average senses of humor. By Tom Robbins Average Competition Quality Auras Minds

Never be afraid to love, not even when there's a chance you're not being loved in return. By Tom Robbins Love Return Afraid Chance Loved

When two people meet and fall in love, there's a sudden rush of magic. Magic is just naturally present then. We tend to feed on that gratuitous magic without striving to make any more. One day we wake up and find that the magic is gone. We hustle to get it back, but by then it's usually too late, we've used it up. What we have to do is work like hell at making additional magic right from the start. It's hard work, but if we can remember to do it, we greatly improve our chances of making love stay. By Tom Robbins Magic People Meet Fall Sudden

The first thunderstorm of the season was in the dressing room, donning its black robes and its necklace of hailstones, strapping on its electrical sword. By Tom Robbins Room Donning Hailstones Strapping Sword

The clown is a creature of chaos. His appearance is an affront to our sense of dignity, his actions a mockery of our sense of order. The clown (freedom) is always being chased by the policeman (authority). Clowns are funny precisely because their shy hopes lead invariably to brief flings of (exhilarating?) disorder followed by crushing retaliation from the status quo. It delights us to watch a careless clown break taboos; it thrills us vicariously to watch him run wild and free; it reassures us to see him slapped down and order restored. After all, we can condone liberty only up to a point. Consider Jesus as a ragged, nonconforming clownlaughed at, persecuted and despisedplaying out the dumb show at his crucifixion against the responsible pretensions of authority. By Tom Robbins Chaos Clown Sense Creature Authority

There is, however, a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like part of the act. By Tom Robbins Typewriter Similarity Juggling Composing Make

There is a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like a part of the act. By Tom Robbins Typewriter Similarity Juggling Composing Make

If you take any activity, any art, any discipline, any skill, take it andpush it as far as it will go, push it beyond where it has ever been before,push it to the wildest edge of edges, then you force it into the realm ofmagic. By Tom Robbins Activity Art Discipline Skill Push

Conservatives understand Halloween, liberals only understand Christmas. If you want to control a population, don't give it social services, give it a scary adversary. By Tom Robbins Halloween Christmas Conservatives Liberals Understand

I had literary interests my whole life. I decided at the age of five I was going to be a writer. So I had done a great deal of reading. I suppose I was more at home in Greenwich Village than, say, any of classmates from Warsaw High School. But in any case, it was an overwhelming experience for me. It took me some time to begin to assimilate it. By Tom Robbins Life Literary Interests School Writer

As we drive up the river road, there are sixty thousand trees which I see but do not touch. Like me, Amanda is confined in the speeding Jeep, but she touches every tree. By Tom Robbins Road Touch Amanda Jeep Drive

Look, America is no more a democracy than Russia is a Communist state. The governments of the U.S. and Russia are practically the same. There's only a difference of degree. We both have the same basic form of government: economic totalitarianism. In other words, the settlement to all questions, the solutions to all issues are determined not by what will make the people most healthy and happy in the bodies and their minds but by economics. Dollars or rubles. Economy uber alles. Let nothing interfere with economic growth, even though that growth is castrating truth, poisoning beauty, turning a continent into a shit-heap and riving an entire civilization insane. Don't spill the Coca-Cola, boys, and keep those monthly payments coming. By Tom Robbins America Russia Communist State Democracy

He sighed. It's entertaining, but it's empty. It's just another big party. An opportunity for some to spend money and others to make money. It isn't connected to anything larger than itself. I've been a foe of Christianity all my life, but Christianity gave meaning to the fun and the rowdiness, made it more fun and more rowdy. You can't raise hell when you don't believe in hell. By Tom Robbins Sighed Christianity Fun Money Hell

Wasn't crying. I've had a bad day. Another one. One in a series of bad days. I'm not complaining. Bad days are my bag. They're time-consuming, however, and I'm a busy girl. By Tom Robbins Bad Crying Days Day Complaining

Whether a man is a criminal or a public servant is purely a matter of perspective. By Tom Robbins Perspective Man Criminal Public Servant

Life is too small a container for certain individuals. Some of them, such as Alobar, huff and puff and try to expand the container. Others, such as Kudra, seek to pry the lid off and hop out. By Tom Robbins Life Individuals Container Alobar Small

Soul is not even that Crackerjack prize that God and Satan scuffle over after the worms have all licked our bones. That's why, when we ponderas sooner or later each of us mustexactly what we ought to be doing about our soul, religion is the wrong, if conventional, place to turn. Religion is little more than a transaction in which troubled people trade their souls for temporary and wholly illusionary psychological comfortthe old give-it-up-in-order-to-save-it routine. Religions lead us to believe that the soul is the ultimate family jewel and that in return for our mindless obedience, they can secure it for us in their vaults, or at least insure it against fire theft. They are mistaken. By Tom Robbins Crackerjack God Satan Soul Religion

Society in general maintains such a vested interested in its cozy habits and solidified belief systems that it had rather die - or kill - than entertain change. Consider how threatened religious fundamentalists of all faiths remain to this day by science in general and Darwin in particular. By Tom Robbins Society Die Kill Change General

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. By Tom Robbins Poetry Insanities Lunar Concerned Essential

Safe guidelines for your conversation. Mr. Wrangle went one step further. He doesn't feel it would be emotionally beneficial - for either one of you - to converse at all. He feels that poignant dialogue will merely make your separation By Tom Robbins Safe Conversation Guidelines Wrangle Beneficial

What are the odds that two separate writers, strangers, a thousand miles apart, would each invent fictions in which guys take girls to an esoteric frog lecture on their first date? If that isn't synchronicity, it's something equally as weird. By Tom Robbins Strangers Writers Date Odds Separate

So, even for those of us who can't personally witness Salome's dance, the fifth veil surely will fall. It will fall at the moment of our death. As we lie there, helpless, beyond distraction, electricity stealing out of our brains like a con man stealing out of a sucker's neighborhood, it will occur to many of us that everything we ever did, we did for money. And at that instant, right before the stars blink off, we will, according to what else we may have learned in life, burn with an unendurable regretor have us a good silent laugh at our own expense. By Tom Robbins Salome Fall Dance Personally Witness

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.' By Tom Robbins Book Mormon Beach Read People

Can o'Beans was to remark that a comparison between the American Cowpoke and, say, the Japanese samurai, left the cowboy looking rather shoddy. 'Before a samurai went into battle,' Can o' Beans was to say, 'he would burn incense in his helmet so that if his enemy took his head, he would find it pleasant to his nose. Cowboys, on the other hand, hardly ever bathed or changed their crusty clothing. If a samurai's enemy lost his sword, the samurai gave him his extra one so that the fight might continue in a manner honorable and fair. The cowboy's specialty was to shoot enemies in the back from behind a bush. Do you begin to see the difference?' Spoon and Dirty Sock would wonder how Can o' Beans knew so much about samurai. 'Oh, I sat on the shelf next to a box of imported rice crackers for over a month,' Can o' Beans would explain. 'One can learn a lot conversing with foreigners. By Tom Robbins American Cowpoke Japanese Samurai Beans

It was laughter that might have been squeezed from the tubes of his own darkest heart, then amplified fifty times through the bellows of a loon's ass. By Tom Robbins Heart Ass Laughter Squeezed Tubes

The theater of man is not always 'amusing', but it is always theater, and theater can be marveled at even when its content is somber and harsh. You're acquainted with Greek tragedy? By Tom Robbins Amusing Theater Harsh Man Marveled

It's been said that golf is a Zen activity. I'd argue that if golfers were practicing Zen, they wouldn't keep score. By Tom Robbins Zen Activity Golf Score Argue

Most Americans pay lip service to the idea of freedom, but can't handle real freedom. By Tom Robbins Freedom Americans Pay Lip Service

Never be afraid to make a fool of yourself. The furthest out you can go is the best place to be. By Tom Robbins Afraid Make Fool Furthest Place

I'm not infatuated with frivolousness. We're just good friends. By Tom Robbins Frivolousness Infatuated Friends Good

Solace? That's why God made fermented beverages and the blues. By Tom Robbins Solace God Blues Made Fermented

The beauty of simplicity is the complexity it attracts. By Tom Robbins Attracts Beauty Simplicity Complexity

The female characters in my books tend to be independent, frisky, spunky, witty, emotionally strong, erotically daring, spiritually oriented and intellectually generous; in short, the kind of women I admire in real life. By Tom Robbins Frisky Spunky Witty Independent Emotionally

People tend the take everything too seriously. Especially themselves. Yep. And that's probably what makes 'em scared and hurt so much of the time. Life is too serious to take that seriously. By Tom Robbins People Tend Yep Makes Time

Very well. He'd lighten up. As a matter of fact, he felt as light as the bubbly froth that flew from the lips of the waves. Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others should find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him, it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for he'd grown convinced that playmore than piety, more than charity or vigilancewas what allowed human beings to transcend evil. By Tom Robbins Fun Play Lighten Fact Waves

The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it's love and love alone that really matters. By Tom Robbins Love Place Consensual Flawed Trusted

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. Passion is the woods. By Tom Robbins Payoff Passion Woods Complain Beautiful

According to Hindu cosmology, we're in the kali yuga, a dark period when the cow of history is balanced precariously on one leg, soon to topple. Then there are our new-age friends who believe that this December we're in for a global cage-rattling which, once the dust has settled, will usher in a great spiritual awakening. Most of this apocalyptic noise appears to be just wishful thinking on the part of people who find life too messy and uncertain for comfort, let alone for serenity and mirth. By Tom Robbins Hindu Cosmology Yuga Leg Topple

Sometimes one gets the idea that life thinks it's still living in Paris in the thirties. By Tom Robbins Paris Thirties Idea Life Living

The gods have chosen to entertain me with chronic eyestrain headaches. Very poisonous episodes. So I don't do a lot of reading anymore except on tape. By Tom Robbins Headaches Gods Chosen Entertain Chronic

Oh, I thought that this day and age you maybe would be known as bovine custodial officers. By Tom Robbins Officers Thought Day Age Bovine

You know a trillion times more about art than me. But I've learned that it isn't necessary to know all that much. You just make what you wanna see, right? It's a game, right? It's like being paid for dreaming. By Tom Robbins Trillion Times Art Learned Game

The harsh truth is, most red-haired men look like blondes who've spoiled from lack of refrigeration. They look like brown-haired men who've been composted out behind the barn. Yet that same pigmentation that on a man can resemble leaf mold or junkyard rust, a woman wears like a tiara of rubies. By Tom Robbins Refrigeration Men Harsh Truth Redhaired

Well, I believe life is a Zen koan, that is, an unsolvable riddle. But the contemplation of that riddle - even though it cannot be solved - is, in itself, transformative. And if the contemplation is of high enough quality, you can merge with the divine. By Tom Robbins Zen Riddle Koan Life Unsolvable

Pastor of the Warsaw Baptist Church, Dr. Peters was tall, gaunt, and pale, with a weak damp smile and cold damp palms: shaking his hand was like being forced to grasp the flaccid penis of a hypothermic zombie. By Tom Robbins Gaunt Church Warsaw Baptist Peters

Certain individual words do possess more pitch, more radiance, more shazam! than others, but it's the way words are juxtaposed with other words in a phrase or sentence that can create magic. Perhaps literally. By Tom Robbins Words Pitch Radiance Shazam Magic

Oh God, are there so many of them in our land! Students who can't be happy until they've graduated, servicemen who can't be happy until they are discharged, single folks who can't be happy until they've found a mate, workers who can't be happy until they've retired, adolescents who aren't happy until they're grown, ill people who aren't happy until they're well, failures who aren't happy until they succeed, restless who can't wait until they get out of town, and in most cases, vice versa, people waiting, waiting for the world to begin. By Tom Robbins Happy God Land People Waiting

Bland writing - timid, antiseptic, vanilla writing - is nearly as unhealthy as the brutal and dark. Instead of sipping, say, elixir, nectar, tequila, or champagne, the reader is invited to slurp lumpy milk or choke on the author's dust bunnies. By Tom Robbins Writing Timid Antiseptic Bland Vanilla

Magic things are fond of deceptions. By Tom Robbins Magic Deceptions Things Fond

The Earth is God's pinball machine and each quake, tidal wave, flash flood and volcanic eruption is the result of a TILT that occurs when God, cheating, tries to win free games. By Tom Robbins Cheating God Earth Tilt Quake

Somewhere in the archives of crudest instinct is recorded the truth that it is better to be endangered and free than captive and comfortable. By Tom Robbins Comfortable Archives Crudest Instinct Recorded

The first time that she spread her legs for him it had been like opening her jaws for the dentist. By Tom Robbins Dentist Time Spread Legs Opening

Meet me in Cognito, baby. In Cognito, we'll have nothing to hide. By Tom Robbins Cognito Baby Meet Hide

Seattle rain smells different from New Orleans rain ... New Orleans rain smells of sulfur and hibiscus, trumpet metal, thunder and sweat. Seattle rain, the widespread rain of the Great Northwest, smells of green ice and sumi ink, of geology and silence and minnow breath. By Tom Robbins Orleans Rain Smells Seattle Northwest

Women are tough and rather coarse. They were built for the raw, crude work of bearing children. You'd be amazed at what they can do when they divert that baby-hatching energy into some other enterprise. By Tom Robbins Women Coarse Tough Raw Crude

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 By Tom Robbins Fair Lady World Life Death

Pigeon she strut on the rooftopCockroach he strut on the sink My baby strut down to JerusalemWhere blood is the favorite drink By Tom Robbins Strut Pigeon Drink Rooftopcockroach Sink

Despite his title, the Secretary of the Interior was a shallow man. He was given to surfaces, not depths; to cortex, not medulla; to the puff, not the cream. He didn't understand the interior of anything: not the interior of a tenor sax solo, a painting or a poem; not the interior of an atom, a planet, a spider or his wife's body; not the interior, least of all, of his own heart and head. By Tom Robbins Interior Secretary Title Man Shallow

There are people in this world who can wear whale masks and people who cannot, and the wise know to which group they belong. By Tom Robbins Belong People World Wear Whale

I have hitched and hiked over every state and half the nations, through blizzards and under rainbows, in deserts and cities, backward and side-ways, upstairs, downstairs and in my lady's chamber. By Tom Robbins Upstairs Nations Rainbows Cities Backward

Poetry is nothing more than an intensification or illumination of common objects and everyday events until they shine with their singular nature, until we can experience their power, until we can follow their steps in the dance, until we can discern what parts they play in the Great Order of Love. How is this done? By fucking around with the syntax. By Tom Robbins Love Great Order Poetry Nature

They glared at her the way any intelligent persons ought to glare when what they need is a smoke, a bite, a cup of coffee, a piece of ass, or a good fast-paced story, and all they're getting is philosophy. By Tom Robbins Smoke Bite Coffee Ass Story

Christ said that illumination is found only by putting everything one has in jeopardy. Thou, of all humans, should understand the courage that is required to reject the secure blessings of society in order to woo the unpredictable ecstasies of the solitary soul. It is true that Christ had little enthusiasm for dance or copulation, that he took 'right' and 'wrong' too seriously and set himself apart from the natural world, By Tom Robbins Jeopardy Christ Illumination Found Putting

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. By Tom Robbins Sick Calling Heard People Listen

Is this blasphemy, my lord?" "I think not. Those who crafted me, be they gods or demons, crafted this mind that shapes my resistance to their schemes. Surely they were wise enough, at the wheel where I was thrown, to anticipate future resistance in the heart they were abuilding. By Tom Robbins Blasphemy Lord Resistance Crafted Demons

There's probably no subject with quite so many conflictin' opinions about it as there are about food, and 'tis better to swap bubble gum with a rabid bulldog than challenge a single one o' the varyin' beliefs your average human holds about nutrition. By Tom Robbins Conflictin Opinions Food Tis Varyin

As a grandiose self-deception, war is o' the same magnitude as religion. We embrace war or religion - usually both at the same time - as a means o' defeatin' death, but neither o' them do a blinkin' thing but sanction dyin'. Throughout history, Death's best friend has been a priest with a knife. By Tom Robbins Religion Death Selfdeception War Grandiose

Originality is a myth perpetuated by the naive, the romantic, and the unscrupulous. By Tom Robbins Originality Naive Romantic Unscrupulous Myth

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. By Tom Robbins Orleans Animal Worthy Mysterious Private

Employing women as my primary protagonists has allowed me to step outside of myself, to distance myself from my own personality, far more easily than were I to look at events from a masculine perspective. By Tom Robbins Employing Personality Perspective Women Primary

How we shape our understanding of others' lives is determined by what we find memorable in them, and that in turn is determined not by any potentially accurate overview of another's personality but rather by the tension and balance that exist in our daily relationships. By Tom Robbins Determined Relationships Shape Understanding Others

Beer does not satisfy magic, however. So the magic ordered a round of Harvey Wallbangers. But it takes more than vodka to fuel magic. It takes risks. It takes EXTREMES. By Tom Robbins Beer Magic Wallbangers Satisfy Harvey

Ritual he liked, but compulsory routine he hated. Thus, he resented every minute that he now had to surrender to showering, shampooing, shaving, and flossing and brushing his teeth. If mere men could devise self-defrosting refrigerators and self-cleaning ovens, why couldn't nature, in all its complex, inventive magnificence, have managed to come up with self-cleaning teeth? "There's birth," he grumbled, "there's death, and in between there's maintenance. By Tom Robbins Ritual Hated Teeth Compulsory Routine

Far out, Bobby wrote back. Next thing I know, you'll be knitting socks with Whistler's Mother. By Tom Robbins Bobby Back Mother Wrote Whistler

Tilli stroked her Chihuahua. Max's heart made a sound like the sleigh bells on Mrs. Santa Claus's dildo. By Tom Robbins Chihuahua Tilli Stroked Mrs Santa

I'm an outlaw, not a philosopher, but I know this much: there's meaning in everything, all things are connected, and a good champagne is a drink.'Bernard began to sing again. Timidly, Leigh-Cheri joined in. Between verses, they opened another bottle. The popping of its cork echoed throughout the great stone chamber. Of the three billion people on earth, only Bernard and Leigh-Cheri heard the popping of the cork and its echoes. Only Bernard and Leigh-Cheri passed out under the tablecloth. By Tom Robbins Bernard Outlaw Philosopher Connected Drink

I asked Mr. Wrangle what you were like. He said you were hornet juice and rosebuds in a container of gazelle meat. By Tom Robbins Wrangle Asked Meat Hornet Juice

I do not know why the dead do not come back to life. Perhaps death is so wonderful, in ways we cannot comprehend, that they prefer it over and above their friends and loved ones, although I am inclined to doubt that be the case. By Tom Robbins Life Dead Back Wonderful Comprehend

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. By Tom Robbins Odor Bacon Sausage Links Floor

Perhaps the most terrible (or wonderful) thing that can happen to an imaginative youth, aside from the curse (or blessing) of imagination itself, is to be exposed without preparation to the life outside his or her own sphere - the sudden revelation that there is a there out there. By Tom Robbins Terrible Wonderful Thing Youth Curse

It's never too late to have a happy childhood. By Tom Robbins Childhood Late Happy

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. By Tom Robbins Nature Created Mother God Absurd

O shoe, leather ship that sails our cement rivers and woven seas, steering by the star of fashion, circumnavigating hostile reefs of tar and bubble gum; one hour, a tanker ferrying champagne to a playboy's sip; the next, a raft in the slime; bon voyage, bright barge! May you dock in calm closets, safe from the rape of shoe trees. By Tom Robbins Leather Seas Steering Fashion Circumnavigating

When a culture is being dumbed down as effectively as ours is, its narrative arts (literature, film, theatre) seem to vacillate between the brutal and the bland, sometimes in the same work. By Tom Robbins Literature Film Theatre Arts Bland

Poor little babies are so afraid of pain that they spurn the myriad sweet wonders of life so that they might protect themselves from hurt. How can you respect that sort of weakness, how can you admire a human who consciously embraces the bland, the mediocre, and the safe rather than risk the suffering that disappointments can bring? By Tom Robbins Poor Hurt Babies Afraid Pain

If there's a thing, a scene, maybe, an image that you want to see real bad, that you need to see but it doesn't exist in the world around you, at least not in the form that you envision, then you create it so that you can look at it and have it around, or show it to other people who wouldn't have imagined it because they perceive reality in a more narrow, predictable way. And that's it. That's all an artist does. By Tom Robbins Thing Scene Bad Envision Narrow

Street Crime is the only logical response to America's drug policy just as terrorism is the only logical response to America's foreign policy By Tom Robbins America Logical Response Crime Street

There exists a false aristocracy based on family name, property, and inherited wealth. But there likewise exists a true aristocracy based on intelligence, talent and virtue. By Tom Robbins Property Based Wealth Exists Aristocracy

Most really good fiction is compelled into being. It comes from a kind of uncalculated innocence. You need not have your ending in mind before you commence. Indeed, you need not be certain of exactly what's going to transpire on page 2. If you know the whole story in advance, your novel is probably dead before you begin it. Give it some room to breathe, to change direction, to surprise you. Writing a novel is not so much a project as a journey, a voyage, an adventure. By Tom Robbins Good Fiction Compelled Innocence Kind

Switters was actually quite fond of Seattle's weather, and not merely because of it's ambivalence. He liked it's subtle, muted qualities and the landscape that those qualities encouraged if not engendered: vistas that seemed to have been sketched with a sumi brush dipped in quicksilver and green tea. It was fresh, it was clean, it was gently primal, and mystically suggestive. By Tom Robbins Seattle Switters Weather Ambivalence Fond

You're better equipped for this world than I am," she said. "I'm always trying to change the world. You know how to live in it. By Tom Robbins World Equipped Change Live

Rap music ... sounds like somebody feeding a rhyming dictionary to a popcorn popper. By Tom Robbins Rap Music Sounds Popper Feeding

(I recommend that you make all of your major moves on the first of April. Just in case.) By Tom Robbins April Case Recommend Make Major

Cries for help are frequently inaudible. By Tom Robbins Cries Inaudible Frequently

And while meanness is a function of the insensitive, grumpiness is merely a function of the dissatisfied. By Tom Robbins Function Insensitive Grumpiness Dissatisfied Meanness

April. Spring was on the land like an itch. The whole countryside seemed to be scratching itself awake - lazily, luxuriously, though occasionally scratching so hard its nails hit bone, that old cold calcium that lies beneath our tingles. By Tom Robbins April Lazily Luxuriously Scratching Spring

Now and again, one could detect in a childless woman of a certain age the various characteristics of all the children she had never issued. Her body was haunted by the ghost of souls who hadn't lived yet. Premature ghosts. Half-ghosts. X's without Y's. Y's without X's. They applied at her womb and were denied, but, meant for her and no one else, they wouldn't go away. Like tiny ectoplasmic gophers, they hunkered in her tear ducts. They shone through her sighs. Often to her chagrin, they would soften the voice she used in the marketplace. When she spilled wine, it was their playful antics that jostled the glass. They called out her name in the bath or when she passed real children in the street. The spirit babies were everywhere her companions, and everywhere they left her lonesome - yet they no more bore her resentment than a seed resents uneaten fruit. Like pet gnats, like phosphorescence, like sighs on a string, they would follow her into eternity. By Tom Robbins Issued Detect Childless Woman Age

I go into a gallery or museum, and I realize that I don't have to formulate any opinions if I don't want to. I don't have to think this thing through and write about it at any great length. I can think about it if I want to; if not, I can just walk out. So I can enjoy painting really a lot more than I could when I had that sort of pressure. By Tom Robbins Museum Gallery Realize Formulate Opinions

There are landscapes in which we feel above us not sky but space. Something larger, deeper than sky is sensed, is seen, although in such settings the sky itself is invariably immense. There is a place between the cerebrum and the stars where sky stops and space commences, and should we find ourselves on a particular prairie or mountaintop at a particular hour, our relationship with sky thins and loosens while our connection to space becomes solid as bone. By Tom Robbins Sky Space Landscapes Feel Larger

Seattle, the mild green queen: wet and willing, cedar-scented, and crowned with slough grass, her toadstool scepter tilted toward Asia, her face turned ever upward in the rain; the sovereign who washes her hands more persistently than the most fastidious proctologist. By Tom Robbins Asia Seattle Cedarscented Queen Wet

When we feel incomplete, we might search for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we may blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. By Tom Robbins Incomplete Feel Search Complete Relationship

They coil around each other, the light and the darkness, and they absorb each other continuously, yet they never cancel each other out. By Tom Robbins Darkness Continuously Coil Light Absorb

In the end, perhaps we should simply imagine a joke; a long joke that's continually retold in an accent too thick and strange to ever be completely understood. Life is that joke my friends. The soul is the punch line. By Tom Robbins Joke End Understood Simply Imagine

Individualism is bad for business - though absolutely necessary for freedom, progressive knowledge, and any possible interface with the transcendent. By Tom Robbins Individualism Business Freedom Progressive Knowledge

Behind that rough facade, customers drank beer and danced, activities that to any good Southern Baptist invoked the Devil himself. By Tom Robbins Southern Baptist Devil Facade Customers

Hard times and funky living can season the soul, true enough, but joy is the yeast that makes it rise. By Tom Robbins Hard Soul True Rise Times

When I was younger, before this layoff which has nearly finished me, I hitchhiked one hundred and twenty-seven hours without stopping, without food or sleep, crossed the continent twice in six days, cooled my thumbs in both oceans and caught rides after midnight on unlighted highways, such was my skill, persuasion, rhythm. I set records and immediately cracked them; went farther, faster than any hitchhiker before or since. By Tom Robbins Persuasion Rhythm Younger Stopping Sleep

The problem here, Gwen, is that the more desperate you are to achieve financial success and the tighter you hold on to what you've got, the greater your chances of losing it. Money's like love in that respect. By Tom Robbins Gwen Problem Desperate Achieve Financial

Kudra was amused by Alobar's tentative polka until her eyes fell upon the tumescent protrusion dancing with him. Disgusting she thought. An erection is just inappropriate. Then she realized with a shock that she was so wet that children could have sailed toy boats in her underpants. By Tom Robbins Alobar Kudra Amused Tentative Polka

Upon patterned cushions that might have been honked, zig by zag, out of Ornette Coleman's horn, the odalisque exposed her flesh to a society that had grown frightened again of flesh. By Tom Robbins Ornette Coleman Honked Zig Zag

THE BILL FOR DARRELL BOB HOUSTON THE BEET IS THE MOST INTENSE of vegetables. The onion has as many pages as War and Peace, every one of which is poignant enough to make a strong man weep, but the various ivory parchments of the onion and the stinging green bookmark of the onion are quickly charred by belly juices and bowel bacteria. Only the beet departs the body the same color as it went in. Beets consumed at dinner will, come morning, stock a toilet bowl with crimson fish, their hue attesting to beet's chromatic immunity to the powerful digestive acids and thoroughgoing microbes that can turn the reddest pimento, the orangest carrot, the yellowest squash into a single disgusting shade of brown. By Tom Robbins Bill Darrell Bob Houston Intense

Thanks pal, but I tend to avoid any substance that makes me feel smarter, stronger, or better looking than I know I actually am. There were, in his opinion, drugs that diminished ego and drugs that engorged ego, which is to say, revelatory drugs and delusory drugs, and on a psychic level, at least, he favored awe over swagger. Should he ever aspire to become voluntarily delusional, then good old-fashioned alcohol would do the job effectively and inexpensively, thank you, and without the dubious bonus of jaw-clenching jitters. By Tom Robbins Stronger Drugs Pal Smarter Tend

You don't need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Don't even listen, simply wait. Don't even wait. Be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you. To be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet. - Franz Kafka By Tom Robbins Room Listen Wait Leave Remain

You know what I mean? Real and unreal, beautiful and strange, like a dream. It got me high as a kite, but it didn't last long enough. It ended too soon and left nothing behind."That's how it is with dreams," said Priscilla. "They're the perfect crime. By Tom Robbins Priscilla Real Unreal Beautiful Strange

She thought of the things that lovely young women usually think about when they are relaxing in treetops and unhampered by underwear. By Tom Robbins Underwear Thought Things Lovely Young

Choice. It's the word that allows yes and the word that makes no possible. It's the word that puts the free in freedom and takes obligation out of the mix. It's the word upon which adventure, exhilaration, and authenticity depend. It's the word that the cocoon whispers to the caterpillar. By Tom Robbins Word Choice Makes Exhilaration Mix

We do know that she's compassionate and eccentric - an excellent combination in a human being; By Tom Robbins Eccentric Compassionate Excellent Combination Human

Besides, if I am truly immortal, I am my own grandchild, my own descendant, my own dynasty. I am not obliged to live on through what I pass down to others. By Tom Robbins Immortal Grandchild Descendant Dynasty Obliged

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 them arrow 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. By Tom Robbins Fire Creatures Elements Shared Gift

Courage is where you find it. Bravery that comes from a bottle or from book or from a sermon lacks the full strength and purity of bravery that comes straight from the heart. By Tom Robbins Courage Find Bravery Heart Bottle

We use so much bad language that it forms a barrier between ourselves and the truth. By Tom Robbins Truth Bad Language Forms Barrier

I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It's a cruel, repetitious bore. By Tom Robbins Political Problems Solutions Philosophical Solve

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. By Tom Robbins Sanskrit Supper Are Burgers Win

Anarchy is like custard cooking over a flame; it has to be constantly stirred or it sticks and gets heavy, like government. By Tom Robbins Anarchy Flame Heavy Government Custard

At the meeting of our lips, peacocks went into hiding, elephants suffered memory loss, camels developed a maddening thirst, and dinosaurs long thought to be extinct turned up on the evening news. By Tom Robbins Lips Peacocks Hiding Elephants Loss

At the bat of your lashes peacocks preen. Peacocks preen, elephants remember, camels go for days without water, and dinosaurs of all types become extinct. By Tom Robbins Preen Peacocks Bat Lashes Elephants

Larry, wouldn't it be a fine thing, a swell thing, a boon to the community of man and to all creatures great and small, if this girl's soul was as ripe and stunning as her ass. By Tom Robbins Thing Larry Small Ass Fine

Only the young and the beautiful should be allowed to fuck. By Tom Robbins Fuck Young Beautiful Allowed

The goal of this generation's pioneers should be to restrict procreation and limit consumption. They should also take every opportunity to make themselves happy, realizing that the key to self-generated happiness (the only reliable kind) is the refusal to take oneself too seriously. By Tom Robbins Consumption Goal Generation Pioneers Restrict

Mr. and Mrs. Hankshaw were summoned from the waiting room where Saturday Evening Post fantasies had clouded their instinctive parental concern the way that Norman Rockwell's sentimental ideas cloud the purity of a blank canvas. By Tom Robbins Mrs Hankshaw Saturday Evening Post

Human folly does not impede the turning of the stars. By Tom Robbins Human Stars Folly Impede Turning

I started writing when I was 5 years old. I would dictate stories to my mother, and she would copy them in a scrapbook. If she changed anything to make it, in her opinion, better, I would throw a tantrum. By Tom Robbins Years Started Writing Mother Scrapbook

Breathe properly. Stay curious. And eat your beets. By Tom Robbins Breathe Properly Stay Curious Beets

Switters had always seemed to take a both/and approach to life, as opposed to the more conventional and restrictive either/or. By Tom Robbins Switters Life Approach Opposed Conventional

We all dream profusely every night, yet by morning we've forgotten ninety percent of what went on. That's why poets are such important members of society. Poets remember our dreams for us. By Tom Robbins Night Profusely Morning Forgotten Ninety

I don't think that a novel is supposed to be a guide book to happiness any more than it's supposed to be a journal of one's personal pain and frustration, which most novels are today, unfortunately. I think the novels that are most important are those that are more on the order of those coyotes that howl on the hills outside of town. Something mysterious and wild and hypnotic. By Tom Robbins Supposed Frustration Today Guide Book

It was the premise of conference organizers that the Church's continued hostility toward women threatened both their religious lives and, due to its intractable ban on artificial birth control, their physical lives. By Tom Robbins Church Due Control Lives Premise

A child's mind is its living room; it's is going to be residing there for the rest of its earthly existence. By Tom Robbins Room Existence Child Mind Living

(Claude and Marcel LeFever were speaking in French. This simultaneous English translation is being beamed to the reader via literary satellite.) By Tom Robbins Claude Marcel French English Satellite

Among the Haida Indians of the Pacific Northwest, the verb for "making poetry" is the same as the verb "to breathe."Such tidbits of ethnic lore delighted Amanda, and she vowed from that time onward she would try to regulate each breath as if she were composing a poem. By Tom Robbins Verb Northwest Amanda Haida Indians

One of my books is a hallucinogen, an aphrodisiac, a mood elevator, an intellectual garage door opener, and a metaphysical trash compactor. They'll do everything except rotate your tires. By Tom Robbins Hallucinogen Aphrodisiac Elevator Opener Compactor

Your author has found love to be the full trip, emotionally speaking; the grand tour: fall in love, visit both Heaven and Hell for the price of one. By Tom Robbins Heaven Hell Love Trip Emotionally

Of the seven deadly sins, lust is definitely the pick of the litter. By Tom Robbins Sins Lust Litter Deadly Pick

You can't rest in the shade of a human, not even a roly-poly one; and isn't it refreshing that trees can undergo periodic change without having a nervous breakdown over it? By Tom Robbins Human Rest Shade Rolypoly Refreshing

When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so very seriously. Your truly happy people, which is to say, your people who truly like themselves, they don't think about themselves very much. Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin' on himself and start payin' attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. By Tom Robbins Pay Lot Attention Unhappy People

To emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell. By Tom Robbins Life Emphasize Afterlife Deny Hell

Data in our psychic program is often nonlinear, nonhierarchical, archaic, alive, and teeming with paradox. Simply booting up is a challenge, if not for no other reason than that most of us find acknowledging the unknowable and monitoring its intrusions upon the familiar and mundane more than a little embarrassing. By Tom Robbins Nonhierarchical Archaic Alive Data Nonlinear

The brutal truth is, we're scarcely 'educating' children at all. Even if you overlook the guilt, fear, bigotry, and dangerous anti-intellectual flapdoodle being funneled into young brains by schools on the religious right, what we're doing is training kids to be cogs in the wheels of commerce. By Tom Robbins Educating Scarcely Children Brutal Truth

The illusion of the seventh veil was the illusion that you could get somebody else to do it for you. To think for you. To hang on your cross. The priest, the rabbi, the imam, the swami, the philosophical novelist were traffic cops, at best. They might direct you through a busy intersection, but they wouldn't follow you home and park your car. By Tom Robbins Illusion Seventh Veil Cross Priest

Since, on a socio-economic level, there are myriad wrongs that need tobe righted, a major problem for the species seems to be how to assistthe unfortunate, throttle the corrupt, preserve the biosphere, andeffectively organize for socio-economic alteration wihtout theorganization being taken over by dullards, the people who, ironically,are best suited to serving organized causes since they seldom haveanything more imaginative to do and, restricted by tunnel vision,probably wouldn't do it if they had. 151 By Tom Robbins Socioeconomic Level Righted Unfortunate Throttle

There are only two mantras, yum and yuck, mine is yum. By Tom Robbins Mantras Yuck Mine Yum

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 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. By Tom Robbins Security Sweetheart Fact Person Thing

Time, in his view, was a short, sloppy path from Eve's crayon box to the Messiah's fire box. By Tom Robbins Time Eve Messiah View Short

The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary. By Tom Robbins Desire Word Suggests Buddha Left

Human reality is often simultaneously somber and funny. By Tom Robbins Human Funny Reality Simultaneously Somber

If a girl wants to grow up to be a cowgirl, she ought to be able to do it, or else this world ain't worth living in. By Tom Robbins Cowgirl Girl Grow World Worth

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. By Tom Robbins Weeps Weepsfor Weeping Soul Continent

It is not a belly button. (The umbilicus serves, then withdraws, leaving but a single footprint where it stood: the navel, wrinkled and cupped, whorled and domed, blind and winking, bald and tufted, sweaty and powdered, kissed and bitten, waxed and fuzzy, bejeweled and ignored; reflecting as graphically as breasts, seeds or fetishes the omnipotent fertility in which Nature dangles her muddy feet, the navel looks in like a plugged keyhole to the center of our being, it is true, but O navel, though we salute your motionless maternity and the dreams that have gotten tangled in your lint, you are only a scar, after all; you are not it.) By Tom Robbins Navel Button Belly Nature Serves

Unfortunately, little darlings, there is no such thing as a simple love story.The most transitory puppy crush is complex to the extent of lying beyond the far reaches of the brain's understanding. By Tom Robbins Darlings Understanding Thing Simple Love

That's the way the mind works: the brain is genetically disposed towards organization, yet if not controlled, will link even the most imagerial fragment to another on the flimsiest pretense and in the most freewheeling manner, as if it takes a kind of organic pleasure in creative association, without regards to logic or chronological sequence. By Tom Robbins Works Organization Controlled Manner Association

Under an orchard tree, dropping with cherries, cowgirls lay in the shade. They fed each other fruit. Dark juice dribbled into dimples. Cherry meat stained smiles and nostrils. By Tom Robbins Tree Dropping Cherries Cowgirls Shade

The longer Ellen Cherry thought about it, the more convinced she became that the mission of the artist in an overtechnologized, overmasculinized society was to call the old magic back to life.Could it be done? Yeah, you pessimistic wimps, it could. Could she do it? Probably not, but she could give it a whirl. By Tom Robbins Ellen Cherry Overtechnologized Overmasculinized Longer

Morels are ugly in the skillet. The caps look like the scrotums of leprechauns, the stems like the tusks of fetal elephants. By Tom Robbins Morels Skillet Ugly Leprechauns Elephants

Your petal from the salty rose By Tom Robbins Rose Petal Salty

Since when has leadership been a criterion for sanity? Or vice versa. Hitler was a gifted leader, even Nixon. Exhibit leadership qualities as an adolescent, they pack you off to law school for an anus transplant. If it takes, you go into government. By Tom Robbins Sanity Criterion Nixon Leadership Versa

Who knows how to make love stay?Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. By Tom Robbins Love Stay Stays Junior Deli

No. No, it was a lonely writer I met one stormy day in Laguna Beach. He had a poem about Thelonious Monk that he sealed in a tin can and labeled Campbell's Cream of Piano Soup. Later I hear he killed himself to avoid the draft. By Tom Robbins Beach Laguna Lonely Writer Met

Of course I'm inconsistent! Only logicians and cretins are consistent! By Tom Robbins Inconsistent Consistent Logicians Cretins

there are countless ways to live upon this tremendous sphere in mirth and good health, and probably only one way - the industrialized, urbanized, herding way - to live here stupidly, and man has hit upon that one wrong way By Tom Robbins Urbanized Live Health Industrialized Herding

Actually, there are countless ways to live upon this tremorous sphere in mirth and good health, and probably only one way - the industrial, urbanized, herding way - to live here stupidly, and man has hit upon that one way. By Tom Robbins Urbanized Live Health Industrial Herding

To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought. By Tom Robbins Impossible Thought Achieve Precisely Unthinkable

How can men be such lummoxes, such wads of chewing gum on our ballet slippers and still feel so good? By Tom Robbins Lummoxes Good Men Wads Chewing

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. By Tom Robbins Ceo Bible World Verse Hard

He was as nervous as a praying mantis at an atheists' picnic ... By Tom Robbins Picnic Nervous Praying Mantis Atheists

The trouble with you is that the only way you can communicate is through art. You've never learned to communicate your feelings to a man. You don't even want to communicate in a relationship. You think that if you open up to love, you'll lose your independence or your self-expression or creativity or whatever you call all that passionate, wonderful stuff that makes you feel alive inside. By Tom Robbins Communicate Art Trouble Man Learned

Thomas rather thought Foley might ask what purpose was served by an economy whose success and protection depended on people living in ugly, sterile, unhealthy environments-he'd met that argument before and admittedly had had some difficulty refuting it-but the ex-pilot merely shrugged and said, There's more to trees than you think. I've run across some trees I'd sooner hug than a woman. By Tom Robbins Sterile Foley Thomas Ugly Unhealthy

In East of Eden, John Steinbeck wrote that there's never been a great creative collaboration. When the Beatles first burst on the scene, I thought they were proving him wrong. Later, we learned that Lennon and McCartney had each composed their pop masterpieces separately, individually. So it goes. By Tom Robbins Eden John East Steinbeck Collaboration

Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego. It is complicated by exposure to politics. By Tom Robbins Tunnel Ego Vision Caused Optic

The Japanese have become so smitten with the Western condiment - its texture as silky as a kimono, its tang as understated as the tang of Zen - that today they have a word for mayonnaise junkie: mayora. By Tom Robbins Zen Mayora Japanese Western Tang

Since moving to New York, she had been gradually abandoning her old ideas about the nobility of suffering. By Tom Robbins York Suffering Moving Gradually Abandoning

I work with pen and paper. That's my favorite way to write. I love the way the ink sinks into the wood, soaks into the wood pulp. There's something about that process that's so organic. By Tom Robbins Paper Work Pen Wood Write

How could you be so naive as to tell a human being the truth? Men live by embedding themselves in ongoing systems of illusion. Religion. Patriotism. Economics. Fashion. That sort of thing. If you wish to gain the favor of the two-legged ilk, you must learn to fabricate as wholeheartedly as they do. By Tom Robbins Truth Naive Human Religion Men

Well, Daddy, I used to believe that artists went crazy in the process of creating the beautiful works of art that kept society sane. Nowadays, though, artists make intentionally ugly art that's only supposed to reflect society rather than inspire it. So I guess we're all loony together now, loony rats in the shithouse of commercialism. By Tom Robbins Daddy Sane Art Artists Society

If one yearns to see the face of the Divine, one must break out of the aquarium, escape the fish farm, to go swim up wild cataracts, dive in deep fjords. One must explore the labyrinth of the reef, the shadows of the lily pads. How limiting, how insulting to think of God as a benevolent warden, an absentee hatchery manager who imprisons us in the 'comfort' of artificial pools, where intermediaries sprinkle our restrictive waters with sanitized flakes of processed nutriment. By Tom Robbins Divine Aquarium Escape Farm Cataracts

Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need. By Tom Robbins Love Substance Easily Confuses Flux

A few flat clouds folded themselves like crepes over fillings of apricot sky. Pompadours of supper-time smoke billowed from chimneys, separating into girlish pigtails as the breeze combed them out, above the slate rooftops. Chestnut blossoms, weary from having been admired all day, wore faint smiles of anticipation. By Tom Robbins Sky Flat Clouds Folded Crepes

It was quite likely the best advice I've ever received. I can't help but wonder what my life would have been like if I'd actually followed it. By Tom Robbins Received Advice Life

The French say that the best part of an affair is going up the stairs. By Tom Robbins French Stairs Part Affair

Let us, rather, gather facts, all the facts, regardless of aesthetic appeal or theoretical social worth, and spread those facts before us not as the soothsayer spreads the innards of a turkey but as a newspaper spreads its columns. Let us be journalists, then. And like all good journalists, we shall present our facts in an order that will satisfy the famous five W's: wow, whoopee, wahoo, why-not and whew. By Tom Robbins Spreads Facts Gather Worth Columns

a novel that does its own stunts By Tom Robbins Stunts

Simultaneously a frantic, high-tech juggernaut and a timeless Asian dream, Bangkok straddles like no other metropolis the boundary between acrid and sweet, soft and hard, sacred and profane. It's a silk buzz saw, a lacquered jackhammer, a steel-belted seduction, a digital prayer. By Tom Robbins Bangkok Asian Simultaneously Frantic Hightech

'Neotenty' is 'remaining young,' and it may be ironic that it is so little known, because human evolution has been dominated by it. By Tom Robbins Neotenty Remaining Young Ironic Human

When we accept small wonders, we qualify ourselves to imagine great wonders. By Tom Robbins Accept Small Qualify Imagine Great

In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn't creak. By Tom Robbins Life Art Creak Haunted House

To the source), they griped as much as they pleased. The King would stand at a window (during halftime or the seventh-inning stretch) and stare apprehensively at the creeping tide of brambles. "I may be the first monarch in history to be assassinated by blackberries," he would grumble. His Teflon valve grumbled with him. The Queen caressed her Chihuahua. "You know who lifed By Tom Robbins Source Pleased Griped King Window

He who jokes in the executioners face can be destroyed, but never defeated. By Tom Robbins Destroyed Defeated Jokes Executioners Face

I believe in everything; nothing is sacred. I believe in nothing; everything is sacred. Ha Ha Ho Ho Hee Hee. By Tom Robbins Sacred Hee

Can I drink more than one mai tai without taking on the aroma of an aroused butterly? By Tom Robbins Butterly Drink Mai Tai Taking

Early religions were like muddy ponds with lots of foliage. Concealed there, the fish of the soul could splash and feed. Eventually, however, religions became aquariums. Then hatcheries. From farm fingerling to frozen fish stick is a short swim. By Tom Robbins Early Foliage Muddy Ponds Lots

You've remained on the battleground, center stage, experiencing life and, what's more important, experiencing yourself experiencing it. You haven't been reduced to a logistical strategy for somebody else's life-war. By Tom Robbins Experiencing Battleground Center Stage Important

Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets. By Tom Robbins Slavic Potatoes Radishes Beets Peoples

Breath Properly, Stay Curious, and Always Eat Your Beets! By Tom Robbins Properly Stay Curious Beets Eat