Quotes from Tom Robbins

If being alive is not a virtue, then there is little virtue in virtue.

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.

R]ed hair is slow to lay back once it's got its dandruff up, and her bitchy mood required further opportunity to express itself.

Everything that's alvie was born, and everything that was born has got to die. There's no getting around it. It's the law of the universe. The universe does not have laws. It has habits. And habits can be broken.

In times such as ours, however, when there is too much order, too much management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery.

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?

Mystery is the face everybody shared before they were born and the joke they'll finally get after they're dead.

To the extent that this world surrenders its richness and diversity, it surrenders its poetry; to the extent that it relinquishes its capacity to surprise, it relinquishes its music; to the extent that it loses its ability to tolerate ridiculous and even dangerous exceptions, it loses its grace.

The international situation is desperate, as usual.

not only is religion divisive and oppressive, it is also a denial of all that is divine in people; it is a suffocation of the soul.

Difficulties illuminate existence, but they must be fresh and of high quality.

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.

They warn us when we're kids that we're going to have to suffer, but they neglect to mention the indignity. What self-respecting fetus, if shown its future as a proctology patient, boot-camp recruit, or game show contestant, would still elect to be born?

If complexity doesn't beat you, paradox will.

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.

There is a sense in which a painted stick is a stick in bloom. This stick points to the hidden face of God. Sometimes it points to you.

Are you to be an individual, a trespasser in territory none else has had the wit or nerve to explore, or just another troublesome mosquito to be swatted by the authorities?

Anything can be misused. Furthermore, 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.

The universe does not have laws. It has habits. And habits can be broken.

Sentimental memories were like sugar-water icicles.

What an electric heater perched upon the rim of the bathtub of the world that dead Jesus was.

Timbuktu. The last pure place. Isolation being the mother of purity. All men are jealous of Timbuktu because Timbuktu is removed from men, it's the wholeness men have fractured, the sacred extreme they've traded away.

Your petal from the salty rose

I asked Mr. Wrangle what you were like. He said you were hornet juice and rosebuds in a container of gazelle meat.