Quotes by Tom Robbins

...on a number of occasions this book has made reference to magic, and each time youve shaken your head, muttering such criticisms as What does he mean by magic anyhow? Its embarrassing to find a grown man talking about magic in such a manner. How can anybody take him seriously? Or, as slightly more gracious readers have objected, Doesnt the author realize that one cant write about magic? One can create it but not discuss it. Its much too gossamer for that. Magic can be neither described nor defined. Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to slice roast beef.To which the author now replies, Sorry, freeloaders, youre clever but youre not quite correct. Magic isnt the fuzzy, fragile, abstract and ephemeral quality you think it is. In fact, magic is distinguished from mysticism by its very concreteness and practicality. Whereas mysticism is manifest only in spiritual essence, in the transcendental state, magic demands a steady naturalistic base. Mysticism reveals the ethereal in the tangible. Magic makes something permanent out of the transitory, coaxes drama from the colloquial.

There was a marvelous, dark lyricism in his voice, the kind of defiance that is rooted in deep loneliness.

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

In addition, Dr. Dannyboy has suggested a fifth element: positive thinking. Pointing out that their breathing, bathing, dining and screwing brought Alobar and Kudra much physical pleasure, and that an organism steeped in pleasure is an organism disposed to continue, he has said that the will to live cannot be overestimated as a stimulant to longevity. Indeed Dr. Dannyboy goes so far as to claim that ninety percent of all deaths are suicides. Persons, says Wiggs, who lack curiosity about life, who find minimal joy in existence, are all too willing, subconsciously, to cooperate with- and attract- disease, accident and violence.

Success can eliminate as many options as failure

Very well. Hed lighten up. As a matter of fact, he felt as light as the bubbly froth that flew from the lips of the waves. Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others should find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him, it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for hed grown convinced that play--more than piety, more than charity or vigilance--was what allowed human beings to transcend evil.

Well, said Can o Beans, a bit hesitantly, imprecise speech is one of the major causes of mental illness in human beings.Huh?Quite so. The inability to correctly perceive reality is often responsible for humans insane behavior. And every time they substitute an all-purpose, sloppy slang word for the words that would accurately describe an emotion or a situation, it lowers their reality orientations, pushes them farther from shore, out onto the foggy waters of alienation and confusion.The manner in which the other were regarding him/her made Can O Beans feel compelled to continue. The word neat, for example, has precise connotations. Neat means tidy, orderly, well-groomed. Its a valuable tool for describing the appearance of a room, a hairdo, or a manuscript. When its generically and inappropriately applied, though, as it is in the slang aspect, it only obscures the true nature of the thing or feeling that its supposed to be representing. Its turned into a sponge word. You can wring meanings out of it by the bucketful--and never know which one is right. When a person says a movie is neat, does he mean that its funny or tragic or thrilling or romantic, does he mean that the cinematography is beautiful, the acting heartfelt, the script intelligent, the direction deft, or the leading lady has cleavage to die for? Slang possesses an economy, an immediacy thats attractive, all right, but it devalues experience by standardizing and fuzzing it. It hangs between humanity and the real world like a . . . a veil. Slang just makes people more stupid, thats all, and stupidity eventually makes them crazy. Id hate to ever see that kind of craziness rub off onto objects.

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

The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind.

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You cant squeeze blood out of a turnip...The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.The beet was Rasputins favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.

The minute you land in New Orleans, something wet and dark leaps on you and starts humping you like a swamp dog in heat, and the only way to get that aspect of New Orleans off you is to eat it off. That means beignets and crayfish bisque and jambalaya, it means shrimp remoulade, pecan pie, and red beans with rice, it means elegant pompano au papillote, funky file zherbes, and raw oysters by the dozen, it means grillades for breakfast, a po boy with chowchow at bedtime, and tubs of gumbo in between. It is not unusual for a visitor to the city to gain fifteen pounds in a week--yet the alternative is a whole lot worse. If you dont eat day and night, if you dont constantly funnel the indigenous flavors into your bloodstream, then the mystery beast will go right on humping you, and you will feel its sordid presence rubbing against you long after you have left town. In fact, like any sex offender, it can leave permanent psychological scars.

And who ever said the world was fair, little lady? Maybe death is fair, but certainly not life. We must accept the unfairness as proof of the sublime flux of existence, the capricious music of the universe- and go on about our tasks

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

Since when has leadership been a criterion for sanity? Or vice versa. Hitler was a gifted leader, even Nixon. Exhibit leadership qualities as an adolescent, they pack you off to law school for an anus transplant. If it takes, you go into government.

Hawaii once had a rat problem. Then, somebody hit upon a brilliant solution. import mongooses from India. Mongooses would kill the rats. It worked. Mongooses did kill the rats. Mongooses also killed chickens, young pigs, birds, cats, dogs, and small children. There have been reports of mongooses attacking motorbikes, power lawn mowers, golf carts, and James Michener. in Hawaii now, there are as many mongooses as there once were rats. Hawaii had traded its rat problem for a mongoose problem. Hawaii was determined nothing like that would ever happen again.How could Leigh-Cheri draw for Gulietta the appropriate analogy between Hawaiis rodents and society at large? Society had a crime problem. It hired cops to attack crime. Now society has a cop problem.

Humans have evolved to their relatively high state by retaining the immature characteristics of their ancestors. Humans are the most advanced of mammals – although a case could be made for the dolphins – because they seldom grow up. Behavioral traits such as curiosity about the world, flexibility of response, and playfulness are common to practically all young mammals but are usually rapidly lost with the onset of maturity in all but humans. 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.

Its a privilege to love someone, to truly love them; and while its paradisaical if she or he loves you back, its unfair to demand or expect reciprocity. We should consider ourselves luck, 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.

Is that mans fate: to spend his closest hours to truth longing for a lie?

The illusion of the seventh veil was the illusion that you could get somebody else to do it for you. To think for you. To hang on your cross. The priest, the rabbi, the imam, the swami, the philosophical novelist were traffic cops, at best. They might direct you through a busy intersection, but they wouldnt follow you home and park your car.

A persons looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what weve been handed by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. Thats the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall.