Tom Robbins Quotes

“To eliminate the agitation and disappointment of desire, we need but awaken to the fact that we have everything we want and need right now.”

“Teachers who offer you the ultimate answers do not possess the ultimate answers, for if they did, they would know that the ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received.”

“The universe does not have laws. It has habits. And habits can be broken.”

“Perhaps the most terrible (or wonderful) thing that can happen to an imaginative youth, aside from the curse (or blessing) of imagination itself, is to be exposed without preparation to the life outside his or her own sphere.”

“By identifying with our desires and taking them too seriously, we not only increase our susceptibility to disappointment, we actually create a climate inhospitable to the free and easy fulfillment of those desires.”

“Actually, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who actually believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.”

“A sense of humor... is superior to any religion so far devised.”

“I don’t want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb.”

“She needed help, but God was in a meeting whenever she rang.”

“The gods do not limit men. Men limit men.”

“We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating a perfect love.”

“Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin’ on himself and start payin’ attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form o’ self-indulgence.”

“Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it.”

“Well, there’s one thing to be said for money. It can make you rich.”

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as its accomplice.”

“You don’t have to be a genius to recognize one. If you did, Einstein would never have gotten invited to the White House.”

“We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.”

“Birth and death were easy. It was life that was hard.”

“Our individuality is all, all, that we have.”

“When we accept small wonders, we qualify ourselves to imagine great wonders.”

“I’ve learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the beautiful princess has halitosis.”

“I cannot believe that the most delicious things were placed here merely to test us, to tempt us, to make it the more difficult for us to capture the grand prize.”

“It is to erase the fixed smiles of sleeping couples that Satan trained roosters to crow at five in the morning.”

“The Middle Ages hangs over history’s belt like a beer belly. It is too late now for aerobic dancing or cottage cheese lunches to reduce the Middle Ages. History will have to wear size 48 shorts forever.”

“When you’re unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so very seriously. Your truly happy people, which is to say, your people who truly like themselves, they don’t think about themselves very much.”

“There’s no point in saving the world if it means losing the moon.”

“If you’re honest, you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you’re forced to separate what is right from what is merely legal.”

“I’m as capable of rescuing you as you are of rescuing me.”

“People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve.”

“When two people meet and fall in love, there’s a sudden rush of magic. Magic is just naturally present then. We tend to feed on that gratuitous magic without striving to make any more. One day we wake up and find that the magic is gone. We hustle to get it back, but by then it’s usually too late, we’ve used it up.”

“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.”

“Well, you may get off on being a beautiful stereotype, regardless of the social consequences, but my conscience won’t allow it.”

“It was a moon that could stir wild passions in a moo cow. A moon that could bring out the devil in a bunny rabbit. A moon that could turn lug nuts into moonstones, turn Little Red Riding Hood into the big bad wolf.”

“There are only two mantras, yum and yuck, mine is yum.”

“There are two kinds of people in this world: those who’re part of the solution and those who’re part of the problem.”

“Woodpecker’s the name, and outlawing’s the game. I’m wanted in fifty states and Mexico. It’s nice to feel wanted, and I’d like to be wanted by you. In fact, I just blew my disguise in the hopes that it would open your eyes and soften your heart.”

“Loving makes love. Loving makes itself.”

“People are never perfect, but love can be.”

“The difference between a criminal and an outlaw is that while criminals frequently are victims, outlaws never are. Indeed, the first step toward becoming a true outlaw is the refusal to be victimized.”

″‘I’ll follow him to the ends of the earth,’ she sobbed. ‘Yes, darling. But the earth doesn’t have any ends. Columbus fixed that.‘”