Tom Robbins

Equality is not in regarding different things similarly equality is in regarding different things differently.

In the haunted house of life art is the only stair that doesnt creak.

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.

We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.

Redheaded women! Those blood oranges! Those cherry bombs! Those celestial shrews! And queens of copp! “ ode to redheads.

If complexity doesn't beat you, paradox will

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

I believe in nothing, everything is sacred. I believe in everything, nothing is sacred.

I eat so much mayonnaise they were going to send me to the Mayo Clinic.

The most useful thing about art is it's uselessness.

To be or not to be isnt the question. The question is how to prolong being.

In the life of the individual, an aesthetic sensibility is both more authentic and more commendable than a political or religious one.

You may tell the greatest lies and wear a brilliant disguise but you cant escape the eyes of the one who sees right through you.

To be or not to be isn't the question. The question is how to prolong being.

To some extent, Seattle remains a frontier metropolis, a place where people can experiment with their lives, and change and grow and make things happen.

A child's mind is its living room; it's is going to be residing there for the rest of its earthly existence.

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

A writer needs a life of introspection.

I show up in my writing room at approximately 10 A.M. every morning without fail. Sometimes my muse sees fit to join me there and sometimes she doesn't, but she always knows where I'll be. She doesn't need to go hunting in the taverns or on the beach or drag the boulevard looking for me.

Of the seven deadly sins, lust is definitely the pick of the litter.

The ultimate end of any ideology is totalitarianism.

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.'

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

... you should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans.

A hamburger is an icon of layered circles the circle being at once the most spiritual and the most sensual of shapes.

I have always been a romantic, one of those people who believes that a woman in pink circus tights contains all the secrets of the universe.

Anarchy is like custard cooking over a flame; it has to be constantly stirred or it sticks and gets heavy, like government.

Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.

I think science has begun to demonstrate that aging is a disease. If it is, it can be cured.

Writing is the hardest physical work there is.

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.

All depression has its roots in self pity and all self pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.

Usually, autobiography is such an indulgence of the ego.

If little else, the brain is an educational toy.

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.

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

Individualism is bad for business - though absolutely necessary for freedom, progressive knowledge, and any possible interface with the transcendent.

Consider how hard it is to change yourself and youll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.

There is no such thing as a weird human being, It's just that some people require more understanding than others.

You knows dat in New Orleans is not morning 'til dee sun come up.

There is no such thing as a weird human being Its just that some people require more understanding than others.

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

Once one pays some attention to something, then you begin to see evidence of it everywhere.

The full moon - the mandala of the sky.

To achieve the impossible; it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.

The trouble with the fast lane is that all the movement is horizontal. And I like to go vertical sometimes.

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.

Stay committed in your decisions but stay flexible in your approach.

You should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans.

I've decided to take advantage of outsourcing. My next novel will be written by a couple of guys in Bangalore, India.

In order to be respected, authority has got to be respectable.

I am cheerful. I don't know if I'm happy. There is a difference, you know.

Our similarities bring us to a common ground; Our differences allow us to be fascinated by each other.

Our greatest human adventure is the evolution of consciousness. We are in this life to enlarge the soul, liberate the spirit, and light up the brain.

Human folly does not impede the turning of the stars.

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.

Equality is not in regarding different things similarly, equality is in regarding different things differently.

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.

The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplacable being.

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

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.

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.

The one thing emphasized in any creative writing course is 'write what you know,' and that automatically drives a wooden stake through the heart of imagination. If they really understood the mysterious process of creating fiction, they would say, 'You can write about anything you can imagine.'

I'm not infatuated with frivolousness. We're just good friends.

Does koala bear poop smell like cough drops?

If it is committed in the name of God or country, there is no crime so heinous that the public will not forgive it.

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.

Each time we exhale, the world ends; when we inhale, there can be, if we allow it, rebirth and spiritual renewal. It all transpires inside of us. In our consciousness, in our hearts. All the time.

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.

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

At the typewriter you find out who you are.

One has not only an ability to perceive the world but an ability to alter one's perception of it; more simply, one can change things by the manner in which one looks at them.

To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.

Transformation, liberation and celebration are the themes of all my novels.

Reality is contradictory. And it's paradoxical.

True stability results when presumed order and presumed disorder are balanced. A truly stable system expects the unexpected, is prepared to be disrupted, waits to be transformed.

To live fully, one must be free, but to be free one must give up security. Therefore, to live one must be ready to die. How's that for a paradox?

There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.

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.

The sky was the color of Edgar Allan Poe's pajamas.

Stay committed to your decisions but stay flexible in your approach.

True stability results when presumed order and presumed disorder are balanced.

Sharks are the criminals of the sea. Dolphins are the outlaws.

Most Americans pay lip service to the idea of freedom, but can't handle real freedom.

People write memoirs because they lack the imagination to make things up.

Alcoholism is an imperfect spiritual longing.

Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.

To emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell.

Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide.

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.

Our world isn't made of earth, air and water or even molecules and atoms; our world is made of language.

We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.

We use so much bad language that it forms a barrier between ourselves and the truth.

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

There are essential and inessential insanities. The later are solar in character, the former are linked to the moon.