Tom Robbins

The Devil doesn't make us do anything. The Devil, for example, doesn't make us mean. Rather, when we're mean, we make the Devil. Literally. Our actions create him. Conversely, when we behave with compassion, generosity, and grace, we create God in the world.

Tom Robbins

generosity compassion mean

Don't confuse symmetry with balance.

Tom Robbins

symmetry balance

Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you're a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace - and maybe even glory.

Tom Robbins

self-esteem grace lying

I am looking for the novelists whose writing is an extension of their intellect rather than an extension of their neurosis.

Tom Robbins

neurosis novelists writing

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.

Tom Robbins

philosophical men believe

The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind.

Tom Robbins

mind dull enemy

Now that I'm in love, I haven't a clue. Now that I'm in love, I'm completely stupid on the subject.

Tom Robbins

clue subjects stupid

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

Tom Robbins

pajamas color sky

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.

Tom Robbins

taught-us leader doe

There are essential and inessential insanities... Inessential insanities get one in trouble with oneself. Essential insanities get one in trouble with others. It's always preferable to be in trouble with others. In fact, it may be essential.

Tom Robbins

essentials may insanity

Don't talk about it - you'll talk it away. Let the ideas flow from your mind to the page without exposing them to air. Especially hot air.

Tom Robbins

air writing ideas

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.

Tom Robbins

journey writing adventure

As expected, you get his machine. Someday, even the "call of nature" will be answered by a machine.

Tom Robbins

machines phones humorous

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.

Tom Robbins

japan humorous funny

A mockingbird... was heard to blend the songs of 32 different kinds of birds into a 10 minute performance, a virtuoso display that served no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art.

Tom Robbins

song art fall

Love is dope, not chicken soup.

Tom Robbins

dope soup love-is

People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve. (Bernard Mickey Wrangle, p 99)

Tom Robbins

still-life-with-woodpecker sacrifice people

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.

Tom Robbins

maturity struggle home

Reality whistles a different tune underwater.

Tom Robbins

underwater tunes reality

Human beings were not well served by permanence or stasis. Obviously, if individuals were progressing, they were undergoing a series of presumably desirable alterations, but in a universe where flux is fundamental, it can be argued that even change for the worse is preferable to no change at all. Isn't fixity the hallmark of the living dead?.

Tom Robbins

progress evolution fundamentals

My paintings are very strange - large and empty, like walls. Just the opposite of my writing, which is rich and juicy.