Thomas Eugene Robbins is an American novelist. His best-selling novels are “seriocomedies”. Profoundly inspirational Tom Robbins quotes will encourage growth in life, make you wiser and broaden your perspective.
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Famous Tom Robbins Quotes
When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on – series polygamy – until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimension to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter. – 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
So you think that you’re a failure, do you? Well, you probably are. What’s wrong with that? In the first place, if you’ve any sense at all you must have learned by now that we pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free. – Tom Robbins
Serious reading is hardly a social activity and every halfway serious reader is perpetually subject to a form of coitus interruptus. Family members or friends who lack the desire, the courage, or the opportunity to burst in on you when there’s some indication that you could be sexually entwined will seldom hesitate to interject themselves between you and a page, even though the act of reading is often as intimate and intense as a full-fledged carnal embrace. – Tom Robbins
Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don’t be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked. – Tom Robbins
Rules such as Write what you know, and Show, don’t tell, while doubtlessly grounded in good sense, can be ignored with impunity by any novelist nimble enough to get away with it. There is, in fact, only one rule in writing fiction: Whatever works, works. – Tom Robbins
Would you complain because a beautiful sunset doesn’t have a future or a shooting star a payoff? And why should romance ‘lead anywhere’? Passion isn’t a path through the woods. Passion is the woods. – Tom Robbins
The Divine was beyond description, beyond knowing, beyond comprehension. To say that the Divine was Creation divided by Destruction was as close as one could come to definition. But the puny of soul, the dull of wit, weren’t content with that. They wanted to hang a face on the Divine. They went so far as to attribute petty human emotions – anger, jealousy, etc – to it, not stopping to realize that if God were a being, even a supreme being, our prayers would have bored him to death long ago. – Tom Robbins
The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought. – Tom Robbins
As a child, I was an imaginary playmate. – Tom Robbins
There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for. – Tom Robbins
I’ve sucked way too much cement for this year. Bad juju rising off them city sidewalks. I need to babble with a brook or two, inhale starlight, make friends with some trees. – Tom Robbins
If complexity doesn’t beat you, paradox will. – Tom Robbins
Each time we exhale, the world ends; when we inhale, there can be, if we allow it, rebirth and spiritual renewal. It all transpires inside of us. In our consciousness, in our hearts. All the time. – Tom Robbins
Brilliantly, ecstatically, irrepressibly. This is the way to burn – Tom Robbins
When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing. – Tom Robbins
Whether a man is a criminal or a public servant is purely a matter of perspective. – Tom Robbins
You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked? Have you risked disapproval? Have you ever risked economic security? Have you ever risked a belief? I see nothing particularly courageous about risking one’s life. So you lose it, you go to your hero’s heaven and everything is milk and honey ’til the end of time. Right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That’s not courage. Real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one’s clichés. – Tom Robbins
If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf howl, a photon and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It’s a program, a piece of hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery. Not a mystery, mind you – the Mystery. The one that can never be solved. – Tom Robbins
Meditation… dissolves the mind. It erases itself. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass. – Tom Robbins
The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men. We all have the same enemy. The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, 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. – Tom Robbins
The winter passed as slowly and peacefully as a boa constrictor digesting a valium addict. – Tom Robbins
The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary. – Tom Robbins
But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something? Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you. Mediocrity’s a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation. – Tom Robbins
What I’ve learned along the way is that existence is cosmic theatre, but paradoxically, we should play our roles to the absolute best of our ability while having the wisdom not to take them too seriously. – Tom Robbins
There are only two mantras, yum and yuck, mine is yum. – Tom Robbins
Transformation, liberation and celebration are the themes of all my novels. – Tom Robbins
We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. – Tom Robbins
Never be afraid to make a fool of yourself. The furthest out you can go is the best place to be. – Tom Robbins
Our greatest human adventure is the evolution of consciousness. We are in this life to enlarge the soul, liberate the spirit, and light up the brain. – Tom Robbins
Logic only gives man what he needs… Magic gives him what he wants. – Tom Robbins
The one thing emphasized in any creative writing course is ‘write what you know,’ and that automatically drives a wooden stake through the heart of imagination. If they really understood the mysterious process of creating fiction, they would say, ‘You can write about anything you can imagine.’ – Tom Robbins
Here’s an idea: let’s get over ourselves, buy a cherry pie, and go fall in love with life. – Tom Robbins
The brutal truth is, we’re scarcely ‘educating’ children at all. Even if you overlook the guilt, fear, bigotry, and dangerous anti-intellectual flapdoodle being funneled into young brains by schools on the religious right, what we’re doing is training kids to be cogs in the wheels of commerce. – Tom Robbins
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. – Tom Robbins
Comedy is deemed inferior to tragedy primarily because of the social prevalence of narcissistic pathology. In other words people who are too self important to laugh at their own frequently ridiculous behavior have vested interest in gravity because it supports their illusions of grandosity. – Tom Robbins
To an artist a metaphor is as real as a dollar. – Tom Robbins
Eating a raw oyster is like french kissing a mermaid. – Tom Robbins
People feel tremendous pressure to settle down in some sort of permanent space and fill it up with stuff, but deep inside they resent those structures, and they’re scared to death of that stuff because they know it controls them and restricts their movements. – Tom Robbins
The only authority I respect is the one that causes butterflies to fly south in fall and north in springtime. – Tom Robbins
If you want your tree to produce plenty o’ fruit, you’ve got to cut it back from time to time. Same thing with your neural cells. Some people might call it brain damage. I call it prunin’. – Tom Robbins
Well, Daddy, I used to believe that artists went crazy in the process of creating the beautiful works of art that kept society sane. Nowadays, though, artists make intentionally ugly art that’s only supposed to reflect society rather than inspire it. So I guess we’re all loony together now, loony rats in the shithouse of commercialism. – Tom Robbins
Above all, have a good time. If you aren’t enjoying writing it, you can hardly expect someone else to enjoy reading it. – Tom Robbins
Outlaws are can openers in the supermarket of life. – Tom Robbins
I show up in my writing room at approximately 10 A.M. every morning without fail. Sometimes my muse sees fit to join me there and sometimes she doesn’t, but she always knows where I’ll be. She doesn’t need to go hunting in the taverns or on the beach or drag the boulevard looking for me. – Tom Robbins
Breathe properly. Stay curious. And eat your beets. – Tom Robbins
Society in general maintains such a vested interested in its cozy habits and solidified belief systems that it had rather die – or kill – than entertain change. Consider how threatened religious fundamentalists of all faiths remain to this day by science in general and Darwin in particular. – Tom Robbins
We only rise above mediocrity when there’s something at stake. p. 174 – Tom Robbins
A lot of my work comes from what in Asia is called the ‘mind of wonder.’ There is not a lot of ‘mind of wonder’ writing in contemporary Western literature. I think that’s what appeals to the readers who are my fans. – Tom Robbins
It is better to be small, colorful, sexy, careless, and peaceful. – Tom Robbins
All a person can do in this life is gather about him his integrity, his imagination, and his individuality – and with these ever with him, out front and in sharp focus, leap into the dance of experience. – Tom Robbins
Meet me in Cognito, baby. In Cognito, we’ll have nothing to hide. – Tom Robbins
Never be afraid to love, not even when there’s a chance you’re not being loved in return. – Tom Robbins
there are two kinds of people in this world : those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better. – Tom Robbins
To emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell. – Tom Robbins
There is no such thing as a weird human being, It’s just that some people require more understanding than others. – Tom Robbins
The Earth is God’s pinball machine and each quake, tidal wave, flash flood and volcanic eruption is the result of a TILT that occurs when God, cheating, tries to win free games. – Tom Robbins
In fiction, when you paint yourself into a corner, you can write a pair of suction cups onto the bottoms of your shoes and walk up the wall and out the skylight and see the sun breaking through the clouds. In nonfiction, you don’t have that luxury. – Tom Robbins
We are seldom as limited as we think we are. – Tom Robbins
Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. 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. – Tom Robbins
If desire causes suffering, it may be because we do not desire wisely, or that we are inexpert at obtaining what we desire. Instead of hiding our heads in a prayer cloth and building walls against temptation, why not get better at fulfilling desire? Salvation is for the feeble, that’s what I think. I don’t want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb. – Tom Robbins
Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. – Tom Robbins
Kissing is man’s greatest invention. All animals copulate, but only humans kiss. – Tom Robbins
A sense of humor…is superior to any religion so far devised. – Tom Robbins
The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens — but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it’s love and love alone that really matters. – Tom Robbins
To live fully, one must be free, but to be free one must give up security. Therefore, to live one must be ready to die. How’s that for a paradox? – Tom Robbins
You may tell the greatest lies and wear a brilliant disguise, but you can’t escape the eyes of the one who sees right through you. – Tom Robbins
When humans were young, they were pushed around in strollers. When they were old, they were pushed around in wheelchairs. In between, they were just pushed around. – Tom Robbins
The trouble with the fast lane is that all the movement is horizontal. And I like to go vertical sometimes. – Tom Robbins
To achieve the impossible; it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought. – Tom Robbins
Wit and playfulness represent a desperately serious transcendence of evil. Humor is both a form of wisdom and a means of survival. – Tom Robbins
Unfortunately, little darlings, there is no such thing as a simple love story.The most transitory puppy crush is complex to the extent of lying beyond the far reaches of the brain’s understanding. – Tom Robbins
In times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings–artists, scientists, clowns and philosophers–to create order. 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. To relive the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption. – Tom Robbins
Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer. – Tom Robbins
The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. – Tom Robbins
Intimacy is the principal source of the sugars which this life is sweetened! – Tom Robbins
Minds were made for blowing. – Tom Robbins
What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make others people’s decisions for them? Liberty, the very opposite of ownership and control, cannot, then, result from political action, either at the polls or at the barricades, but rather evolves out of attitude. If it results from anything, it must be levity. – Tom Robbins
You should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans. – Tom Robbins
Some folks hide and some folks seek, and seeking when its mindless, neurotic, desperate, or pusillanimous, can be a form of hiding. – Tom Robbins
Deep down, all of us are probably aware that some kind of mystical evolution is our true task. Yet we suppress the notion with considerable force because to admit it is to admit that most of our political gyrations, religious dogmas, social ambitions, and financial ploys are not merely counter-productive but trivial. – Tom Robbins
Oh God, are there so many of them in our land! Students who can’t be happy until they’ve graduated, servicemen who can’t be happy until they are discharged, single folks who can’t be happy until they’ve found a mate, workers who can’t be happy until they’ve retired, adolescents who aren’t happy until they’re grown, ill people who aren’t happy until they’re well, failures who aren’t happy until they succeed, restless who can’t wait until they get out of town, and in most cases, vice versa, people waiting, waiting for the world to begin. – Tom Robbins
I want to travel on a train that smells like snowflakes. I want to sip in cafes that smell like comets. Under the pressure of my step, I want the streets to emit the precise odor of a diamond necklace. I want the newspapers I read to smell like the violins left in pawnshops by weeping hobos on Christmas Eve. I want to carry luggage that reeks of the neurons in Einstein’s brain. I want a city’s gases to smell like the golden belly hairs of the gods. And when I gaze at a televised picture of the moon, I want to detect, from a distance of 239,000 miles, the aroma of fresh mozzarella. – Tom Robbins
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. – Tom Robbins
Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it in, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life’s bittersweet route. – Tom Robbins
Plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn’t be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate resposne to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure. – Tom Robbins
It’s personal freedom, not hundred dollar bills that lights the soul’s cigar. – Tom Robbins
Ellen Cherry was from the south and had good manners. She didn´t have any panties on, but she had good manners. – Tom Robbins
The only question is how to make love stay. – Tom Robbins
Usually, autobiography is such an indulgence of the ego. – Tom Robbins
In the beginning was the thing. And one thing led to another. – Tom Robbins
Leave me in the night but please don’t leave me in the dark – Tom Robbins
On the mainland, a rain was falling. The famous Seattle rain. The thin, gray rain that toadstools love. The persistent rain that knows every hidden entrance into collar and shopping bag. The quiet rain that can rust a tin roof without the tin roof making a sound in protest. The shamanic rain that feeds the imagination. The rain that seems actually a secret language, whispering, like the ecstasy of primitives, of the essence of things. – Tom Robbins
Our similarities bring us to a common ground; Our differences allow us to be fascinated by each other. – Tom Robbins
Often, moreover, it is…that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable, that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes. – Tom Robbins
Throughout most of our history, nothing – not flood, famine, plague, or new weapons – has endangered humanity one-tenth as much as the narcissistic ego, with its self-aggrandizing presumptions and its hell-hound spawn of fear and greed. – Tom Robbins
Somewhere in the archives of crudest instinct is recorded the truth that it is better to be endangered and free than captive and comfortable. – Tom Robbins
Curiosity, especially intellectual inquisitiveness, is what separates the truly alive from those who are merely going through the motions. – Tom Robbins
There’re many ways, my dear, to victimize people. The most insidious way is to persuade them that they’re victims. – Tom Robbins
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
