I think every living moment of a human being's life, unless the person is starving or in immediate danger of death in some other way, is controlled by a concern for status. Tom Wolfe More Quotes by Tom Wolfe More Quotes From Tom Wolfe Everybody, everybody everywhere, has his own movie going, his own scenario, and everybody is acting his movie out like mad, only most people don’t know that is what they’re trapped by, their little script. Tom Wolfe mad acting people A cult is a religion with no political power. Tom Wolfe power religious philosophy The problem with fiction, it has to be plausible. That's not true with non-fiction. Tom Wolfe problem writing fiction Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. ~Tom Wolfe Tom Wolfe dad father children If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. Tom Wolfe liberalism conservatism conservative A lie may fool someone else, but it tells you the truth: you're weak. Tom Wolfe fool may lying Love is the ultimate expression of the will to live. Tom Wolfe ultimate expression love It is very comforting to believe that leaders who do terrible things are, in fact, mad. That way, all we have to do is make sure we don't put psychotics in high places and we've got the problem solved. Tom Wolfe leadership funny believe You're either on the bus or off the bus. Tom Wolfe across-the-universe pranksters hippie [Aldous Huxley] compared the brain to a 'reducing valve'. In ordinary perception, the senses send an overwhelming flood of information to the brain, which the brain then filters down to a trickle it can manage for the purpose of survival in a highly competitive world. Man has become so rational, so utilitarian, that the trickle becomes most pale and thin. It is efficient, for mere survival, but it screens out the most wondrous part of man's potential experience without his even knowing it. We're shut off from our own world. Tom Wolfe perception knowing men I never forget. I never forgive. I can wait. I find it very easy to harbor a grudge. I have scores to settle. Tom Wolfe forgiving never-forget waiting Everybody is going to be what they are, and whatever they are, there's not going to be anything to apologize about. Tom Wolfe kool-aid apologizing Dear Mother, I meant to write you before this and I hope you haven't been worried.... I have met some Beautiful People and... Tom Wolfe mother writing beautiful Put your good where it will do the most! Tom Wolfe It's not just that reporting gives you a bigger slice of life, gives - lends verisimilitude to what you are doing - it's that it feeds the imagination. Tom Wolfe bigger imagination giving What do you mean, blindly? That baby is a very sentient creature… That baby sees the world with a completeness that you and I will never know again. His doors of perception have not yet been closed. He still experiences the moment he lives in. Tom Wolfe doors baby mean His hair has the long jesuschrist look. He is wearing the costume clothes. But most of all, he now has a very tolerant and therefore withering attitude toward all those who are still struggling in the old activist political ways...while he, with the help of psychedelic chemicals, is exploring the infinite regions of human consciousness. Tom Wolfe hippie struggle attitude a perception of the cosmic unity of this higher level. And a feeling of timelessness, the feeling that what we know as time is only the result of a naive faith in causality - the notion that A in the past caused B in the present, which will cause C in the future, when actually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it... in this moment... this supreme moment... this Kairos. Tom Wolfe feelings doors past The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art is merely romantic fiction. The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened. Tom Wolfe romantic-love games art I went to see the Beatles last month... And I heard 20,000 girls screaming together at the Beatles... and I couldn't hear what they were screaming, either... But you don't have to... They're screaming Me! Me! Me! Me!... I'm Me!... That's the cry of the ego, and that's the cry of this rally!... Me! Me! Me! Me!... And that's why wars get fought... ego... because enough people want to scream Pay attention to Me... Yep, you're playing their game. Tom Wolfe girl games war
