Quotes from Tom Robbins

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.

It was a mocking laugh, imperious even; spiked with the cheap gin of cruelty, but diluted with a splash of amusement, garnished with a sprig of pity; and he soaked me with it, as if he'd emptied a rotgut punch bowl over my head.

Once again, the FBI director took the floor. It was almost certain, said he, that there would be a showdown on the Dakota ranch. He described the so-called cowgirls as fanatical subversives violently opposed to the American way of life. These women wanted bloodshed, he said. They had mocked a court order, had refused to negotiate, and were at that very moment pointing firearms, possibly of Communist origin, at government agents.

Ma mia cara... Lei così attraente e intelligente... Possibile che non abbia una vita affettiva? Non esiste più nessuno che l'abbia. In questo nostro tempo la gente ha una vita sessuale, non affettiva. Moltissimi stanno persino rinunciando al sesso. Quanto a me, non ho una vita affettiva perché non ho mai incontrato un uomo che sapesse come avere un vita affettiva. Forse neppure io lo so.

To approach sex carelessly, shallowly, with detachment and without warmth is to dine night after night in erotic greasy spoons. In time one's palate will become insensitive.

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.

That's the value of artists, isn't it? Even when they aren't aware of it, they're dreaming our dreams for us.

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

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.

it's a privilege to love someone, to truly love them; and while it's paradisiacal if she or he loves you back, it's unfair to demand or expect reciprocity. We should consider ourselves lucky, 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.

The sky is as gruff as a Chinese waiter. It keeps slamming the silverware against the horizon.

On where imagination comes from: "I think it comes from fairies … certain children are visited by a fairy in their cradle, and are tapped on their forehead with a small but luminous wand. After that, even all the forces in our culture, and there are many, are unable to totally subdue it.

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.

Cartersian doubt (deliberate suspension of all interpretations of experience that are not absolutely certain)

I love hot hand of explosion. I love a breeze perfumed with the devil smell of powder.

They called her a disgrace to the nurturing traditions of womankind. They threatened to paint a mustache on her and shoot off her nipples.

She felt like a black candle at a wake for a snake.

It didn't take me long to conclude that that was the only sensible approach to editing this book of yours. No editor can hope to impose his will on a performance like this one. We've got to let Tom run.

They glared at her as if she were a piece of modern art at a county fair. A hostile sneer here, a puzzled laugh there...

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

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.

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

green sweater

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