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Wit And Playfulness Represent A Desperately Serious Transcendence Of Evil. Humor Is Both A Form Of Wisdom And A Means Of Survival.
-Tom Robbins
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Wit And Playfulness Represent

Tom Robbins
...
Wit And Playfulness Represent A Desperately Serious Transcendence Of Evil. Humor Is Both A Form Of Wisdom And A Means Of Survival.

Understanding the Quote: "wit and playfulness represent a desperately serious transcendence of evil. humor is..."

This quote by Tom Robbins reflects deeply on the theme of mean. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Mean, Evil, Survival, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Tom Robbins interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Tom Robbins

Tom Robbins is celebrated for insightful thoughts on mean and evil. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 20055
Topic
Mean
Evil
Survival
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Salvador Dali And Fifty Cents Will Get You A Cup Of Clock Melt.
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Modern Romans Insisted That There Was Only One God, A Notion That Struck Alobar As Comically Simplistic. Worse, This Semitic Deity Was Reputed To Be Jealous (what Was There To Be Jealous Of If There Were No Other Gods?), Vindictive, And Altogether Foul-tempered. If You Didn't Serve The Nasty Fellow, The Romans Would Burn Your House Down. If You Did Serve Him, You Were Called A Christian And Got To Burn Other People's Houses Down.
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The Theme Of Corporate Stories (and Millions Drink Them In Every Day) Seldom Varies: To Be Happy You Must Consume, To Be Special You Must Conform. Absurd, Obviously, Yet Our Identities Have Become So Fragile, So Elusive, That We Seem Content To Let Advertisers Provide Us With Their Version Of Who We Are, To Let Them Recreate Us In Their Image: A Cookie-cutter Image Based On Market Research, Shallow Sociology, And Insidious Lies.
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I Think When I'm 80 Years Old, 85, Hopefully, I'll Be Pushed Around In A Wheelchair By A Red-headed Nurse With Panty Outline. She'll Make Me Little Tequila Sunrises And I'll Read My Complete Works Then. Then, I'll Decide Whether I Think I've Done Something Good Or Not. I'll Reserve My Judgment Until Then.
Thinking
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John Irving Once Told Me He Doesn't Start A Novel Until He Knows The Last Sentence. I Said, 'my God, Irving, Isn't That Like Working In A Factory?'
Lasts
Factories
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The Mission Of The Artist In An Over-technologi Zed Society, Is To Call The Old Magic Back To Life.
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We Say We Are Earthlings, Not Waterlings. Our Blood Is Closer To Seawater Than Our Bones To Soil, But Thats No Matter. The Sea Is The Cradle We All Rocked Out Of, But Its To Dust That We Go. From The Time That Water Invented Us, We Began To Seek Out Dirt. The Further We Separate Ourselves From The Dirt, The Further We Separate Ourselves From Ourselves. Alienation Is A Disease Of The Unsoiled.
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As A Child, I Was An Imaginary Playmate.
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The Gods Have Chosen To Entertain Me With Chronic Eyestrain Headaches. Very Poisonous Episodes. So I Don't Do A Lot Of Reading Anymore Except On Tape.
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Alone, The World Offers Itself Freely To Us. To Be Unmasked, It Has No Choice.
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My Desire Was No Less Than Before, You Understand, But I No Longer Identified With The Desire. Perhaps That Is Why 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.
Disappointment
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Dip A Slice Of Bread In Batter. That's September: Yellow, Gold, Soft And Sticky. Fry The Bread. Now You Have October: Chewier, Drier, Streaked With Browns. The Day In Question Fell Somewhere In The Middle Of The French Toast Process.
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I Could Say I Believe In Every Drop Of Rain That . . . Well, I Believe Life Is A Zen Koan, That Is, An Unsolvable Riddle. But The Contemplation Of That Riddle--even Though It Cannot Be Solved--is, In Itself, Transformative. And If The Contemplation Is Of High Enough Quality, You Can Merge With The Divine.
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Life Is Too Small A Container For Certain Individuals. Some Of Them, Such As Alobar, Huff And Puff And Try To Expand The Container. Others, Such As Kudra, Seek To Pry The Lid Off And Hop Out.
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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.
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Choice. It's The Word That Allows Yes And The Word That Makes No Possible. It's The Word That Puts The Free In Freedom And Takes Obligation Out Of The Mix. It's The Word Upon Which Adventure, Exhilaration, And Authenticity Depend. It's The Word That The Cocoon Whispers To The Caterpillar.
Adventure
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The Principal Difference Between An Adventurer And A Suicide Is That The Adventurer Leaves Himself A Margin Of Escape (the Narrower The Margin The Greater The Adventure)
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She Needed Help, But God Was In A Meeting Whenever She Rang.
God
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Sounds Travel Through Space Long After Their Wave Patterns Have Ceased To Be Detectable By The Human Ear: Some Cut Right Through The Ionosphere And Barrel On Out Into The Cosmic Heartland, While Others Bounce Around, Eventually Being Absorbed Into The Vibratory Fields Of Earthly Barriers, But In Neither Case Does The Energy Succumb; It Goes On Forever - Which Is Why We, Each Of Us, Should Take Pains To Make Sweet Notes.
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We All Dream Profusely Every Night, Yet By Morning We've Forgotten Ninety Percent Of What Went On. That's Why Poets Are Such Important Members Of Society. Poets Remember Our Dreams For Us.
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Most Americans Pay Lip Service To The Idea Of Freedom, But Can't Handle Real Freedom.
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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.
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It Is Better To Be Small, Colorful, Sexy, Careless, And Peaceful.
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Certainly That Sputterless Little Candleflame Of The Mediocre Mind Known As 'common Sense' Has Never Produced Anything Worth Celebrating.
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The More Advertising I See, The Less I Want To Buy.
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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?.
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To Be Or Not To Be Isn't The Question. The Question Is How To Prolong Being.
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If We're Ever Going To Get The World Back On A Natural Footing, Back In Tune With Natural Rhythyms, If We're Going To Nurture The Earth And Protect It And Have Fun With It And Learn From It - Which Is What Mothers Do With Their Children - Then We've Got To Put Technology (an Aggressive Masculine System) In Its Proper Place, Which Is That Of A Tool To Be Used Sparingly, Joyfully, Gently And Only In The Fullest Cooperation With Nature. Nature Must Govern Technology, Not The Other Way Around.
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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.
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Employing Women As My Primary Protagonists Has Allowed Me To Step Outside Of Myself, To Distance Myself From My Own Personality, Far More Easily Than Were I To Look At Events From A Masculine Perspective.
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It's Good To Bear In Mind That Like It Or Not, Enlightenment Has Always Been, Even In A Golden Age, Pretty Much Limited To An Elite.
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I Cannot Believe That The Most Delicious Things Were Placed Here Merely To Test Us, To Temp Us, To Make It The More Difficult For Us To Capture The Grand Prize: The Safety Of The Void. To Fashion Of Life Such A Petty Game Is Unworthy Of Both Men And Gods.
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To An Artist A Metaphor Is As Real As A Dollar.
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Though February Lay About Her Shoulders Like A Cloak Of Lead.
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As Any Car Freak Will Tell You, The Old Models Are The Most Beautiful, Even If They Aren't The Most Efficient. People Who Sacrifice Beauty For Efficiency Get What They Deserve.
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...language Is Not The Frosting, It's The Cake.
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When I Go To The Shore, I Take Along The Poems Of Pablo Neruda. I Suppose It's Because The Poems Are Simultaneously Lush And Ripe And Kind Of Lazy, Yet Throbbing With Life - Like Summer Itself.
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Christianity... Is An Eastern Religion.
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Above All, Have A Good Time. If You Aren’t Enjoying Writing It, You Can Hardly Expect Someone Else To Enjoy Reading It.
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I Believe In Nothing, Everything Is Sacred. I Believe In Everything, Nothing Is Sacred.
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Sacred
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Military
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Adventure
Gods And Men Create One Another, Destroy One Another, Though By Different Means.
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Most Novelists Write About Twisted Lives.
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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.
Thinking
Want
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And It Rained A Fever. And It Rained A Silence. And It Rained A Sacrifice. And It Rained A Miracle. And It Rained Sorceries And Saturnine Eyes Of The Totem.
Eye
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I Never Outline. I Don't Work From An Outline. I Have No Idea Where The Book Is Going. I Mean, Even Two-thirds Of The Way Through, I Don't Know How It's Going To End.
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We Only Rise Above Mediocrity When There's Something At Stake. P. 174
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Rise Above
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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.
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Art
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Life Is Hard If You Think It's Hard.
Thinking
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Ifs
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Wonder
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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.
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Hardly A Pure Science, History Is Closer To Animal Husbandry Than It Is To Mathematics In That It Involves Selective Breeding. The Principal Difference Between The Husbandryman And The Historian Is That The Former Breeds Sheep Or Cows Or Such And The Latter Breeds (assumed) Facts. The Husbandryman Uses His Skills To Enrich The Future, The Historian Uses His To Enrich The Past. Both Are Usually Up To Their Ankles In Bullshit.
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Slavic Peoples Get Their Physical Characteristics From Potatoes, Their Smoldering Inquietude From Radishes, Their Seriousness From Beets.
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Potatoes
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The Scientist Keeps The Romantic Honest, And The Romantic Keeps The Scientist Human.
Science
Honest
Scientist
The Most Useful Thing About Art Is It's Uselessness.
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Useful Things
Art Is
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.
Crush
Lying
Simple
All Dreams Continue In The Beyond.
Dream
Conservatives Understand Halloween, Liberals Only Understand Christmas. If You Want To Control A Population, Don't Give It Social Services, Give It A Scary Adversary.
Halloween
Giving
Scary
Politics Is For People Who Have A Passion For Changing Life But Lack A Passion For Living It.
Life Changing
Passion
People
This Is The Room Where Jezebel Frescoed Her Eyelids With History's Tragic Glitter
Jezebel
Glitter
Rooms
The First Time That She Spread Her Legs For Him It Had Been Like Opening Her Jaws For The Dentist.
Time
Legs
Firsts
Life Is Like A Stew, You Have To Stir It Frequently, Or All The Scum Rises To The Top.
Philosophy
Educational
Life Is Like
Unhappiness Is The Ultimate Form Of Self-indulgence.
Self
Unhappy Person
Unhappiness
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.
Running
Food
Passion
Religion Is Nothing But Institutionalized Mysticism. The Catch Is, Mysticism Does Not Lend Itself To Institutionalization. The Moment We Attempt To Organize Mysticism, We Destroy Its Essence. Religion, Then, Is Mysticism In Which The Mystical Has Been Killed. Or, At Least Diminished.
Essence
Doe
Moments
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Drama
Hands
Dysfunction
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.
Distance
Moon
Hair
The Truth, From My Perspective, Is That The World, Indeed, Is Ending - And Is Also Being Reborn. It's Been Doing That All Day, Every Day, Forever.
Perspective
Forever
World
Nobody Quite Knew What To Make Of The Moon Any More.
Philosophy
Educational
Moon
The Sky Was The Color Of Edgar Allan Poe's Pajamas.
Color
Sky
Pajamas
Here's An Idea: Let's Get Over Ourselves, Buy A Cherry Pie, And Go Fall In Love With Life.
Falling In Love
Love Life
Ideas
What Bothers Me Today Is The Lack Of, Well, I Guess You'd Call It Authentic Experience. So Much Is A Sham. So Much Is Artificial, Synthetic, Watered-down, And Standardized...we're Standardizing People, Their Goals, Their Ideas. The Sham Is Everywhere.
Ideas
People
Goal
You Should Never Hesitate To Trade Your Cow For A Handful Of Magic Beans.
Inspiration
Anxiety
Magic
A Lot Of Aspiring Writers Are All Ready To Write A Novel, But They Don't Know How To Write Sentences.
Writing
Novel
Ready
They Fell Asleep Smiling. It Is To Erase The Fixed Smiles Of Sleeping Couples That Satan Trained Roosters To Crow At Five In The Morning.
Morning
Couple
Sleep
You Are An Ignorant Schoolgirl. You Think Civilization Is A Good Thing.
Thinking
Civilization
Ignorant
The Rich Are The Most Discriminated-against Minority In The World. Openly Or Covertly, Everybody Hates The Rich Because, Openly Or Covertly, Everybody Envies The Rich. Me, I Love The Rich. Somebody Has To Love Them. Sure, A Lot O’ Rich People Are Assholes, But Believe Me, A Lot O’ Poor People Are Assholes, Too, And An Asshole With Money Can At Least Pay For His Own Drinks.
Hate
Believe
People
Love Makes The World Go 'round, It's True, But Lust Stops The World In Its Tracks; Love Renders Bearable The Passage Of Time, Lust Causes Time To Stand Still, Lust Kills Time, Which Is Not To Say That It Wastes It Or Whiles It Aimlessly Away But Rather That It Annihilates It, Cancels It, Extirpates It From Continuum; Preventing, While Lasts, Any Lapse Into The Tense And Shabby Woes Of Temporal Society, Lust Is The Thousand-pound Odometer Needle On The Dashboard Of The Absolute.
Track
Lust
World
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.
Running
Soul
Mediocrity
From The Air, Vatican City Looked Like A Marble Monopoly Set. The Church Owned All The Property From Broadwalk To Illinois Avenue, Has Three Hotels On Every Lot, And No Matter How Often It Tossed The Dice You Just Knew It Would Never Land On Go To Jail, It Would Be Forever Passing Go And Collecting $200.
Funny
Humorous
Air
You're Better Equipped For This World Than I Am," She Said. "i'm Always Trying To Change The World. You Know How To Live In It.
Always Trying
World
Said
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.
Struggle
Home
Maturity
Logic Only Gives Man What He Needs... Magic Gives Him What He Wants.
Men
Giving
Magic
Ellen Cherry Was From The South And Had Good Manners. She Didn´t Have Any Panties On, But She Had Good Manners.
Manners
Cherries
Panties
More Immediately, By Waxing Soulful You Will Have Granted Yourself The Possibility Of Ecstatic Participation In What The Ancients Considered A Divinely Animated Universe. And On A Day To Day Basis, Folks, It Doesn't Get Any Better Than That.
Soul
Waxing
Mystery
There Is A Comfort In Conformity, A Security In Control, That Is Appealing. There Is A Thrill In Domination, And We Are All Secretly Attracted To Violence.
Comfort
Thrill
Violence
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.
Insanity
Essentials
May
'neotenty' Is 'remaining Young,' And It May Be Ironic That It Is So Little Known, Because Human Evolution Has Been Dominated By It.
Philosophy
Educational
Ironic
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.
Reality
Water
Confusion
This Is The Room Of The Wolfmother Wallpaper.
Rooms
I Would Only Read The Novels That People Classify As 'beach Books' If I Were Being Held Prisoner And The Only Alternative Was The 'book Of Mormon.'
Beach
Book
People
To Emphasize The Afterlife Is To Deny Life. To Concentrate On Heaven Is To Create Hell.
Afterlife
Heaven
Hell
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.
Reading
Opportunity
Desire
There's No Point In Saving The World If It Means Losing The Moon.
Mean
Moon
World
A Sense Of Humor...is Superior To Any Religion So Far Devised.
Sense Of Humor
Still Life With Woodpecker
Perfume
The Function Of The Artist Is To Provide What Life Does Not.
Artist
Doe
Function
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.
Beer
Lunch
Dancing
A Sneeze Travels At A Peak Velocity Of Two Hundred Miles Per Hour. A Burp, More Slowly; A Fart, Slower Yet. But A Kiss Thrown By Fingers- Its Departure Is Sudden, Its Arrival Ambiguous, And There Is No Source That Can State With Authority What Speeds Are Reached In Its Flight.
Kissing
Two
Departure
I Had Literary Interests My Whole Life. I Decided At The Age Of Five I Was Going To Be A Writer. So I Had Done A Great Deal Of Reading. I Suppose I Was More At Home In Greenwich Village Than, Say, Any Of Classmates From Warsaw High School. But In Any Case, It Was An Overwhelming Experience For Me. It Took Me Some Time To Begin To Assimilate It.
Reading
School
Home
Writing A Novel Is Not So Much A Project As A Journey, A Voyage, An Adventure.
Writing
Adventure
Journey
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.
Integrity
Imagination
Focus
How Can You Admire A Human Who Consciously Embraces The Bland, The Mediocre, And The Safe Rather Than Risk The Suffering That Disappointment Can Bring?
Disappointment
Risk
Suffering
The Bottom Line Is That (a) People Are Never Perfect, But Love Can Be, (b) That Is The One And Only Way That The Mediocre And The Vile Can Be Transformed, And (c) Doing That Makes It That. Loving Makes Love. Loving Makes Itself. We Waste Time Looking For The Perfect Lover Instead Of Creating The Perfect Love. Wouldn't That Be The Way To Make Love Stay?
Creating
People
Perfect
I'll Bet I'm As Old As You Are." "i'm Older Than Sanskrit." "well, I Was Waitress At The Last Supper." "i'm So Old I Remember When Mcdonald's Had Only Sold A Hundred Burgers." "you Win.
Winning
Mcdonalds
Burgers
In Seattle, I Soon Found That My Radical Ideas And Aesthetic Explorations - Ideas And Explorations That In Richmond, Virginia, Might Have Gotten Me Stoned To Death With Hush Puppies - Were Not Only Accepted But Occasionally Applauded.
Virginia
Ideas
Might
There Is A Similarity Between Juggling And Composing On The Typewriter. The Trick Is, When You Spill Something, Make It Look Like A Part Of The Act.
Typewriters
Looks
Still Life With Woodpecker
There Are Apparently Few Limitations Either Of Time Or Space On Where The Psyche Might Journey And Only The Customs Inspector Employed By Our Own Inhibitions Restricts What It Might Bring Back When It Reenters The Home Country Of Everyday Consciousness.
Country
Home
Journey
His Voice Wore No Pants.
Voice
Pants
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.
Song
Art
Fall
Those Same Forces That Drive A Genius To Create The Things Or Ideas That Entertain Or Enlighten Us Often Gobble So Much Of His Personality That He Has None Left For The Social Graces.
Ideas
Personality
Grace
For Most People, Self-awareness And Self-pity Blossom Simultaneously In Early Adolescence. It's About That Time That We Start Viewing The World As Something Other Than A Whoop-de-doo Playground, We Start To Experience Personally How Threatening It Can Be, How Cruel And Unjust. At The Very Moment When We Become, For The First Time, Both Introspective And Socially Conscientious, We Receive The Bad News That The World, By And Large, Doesn't Give A Rat's Ass.
Self
People
Giving
Just Because You're Naked Doesn't Mean You're Sexy. Just Because You're Cynical Doesn't Mean You're Cool.
Sexy
Mean
Cynical
Not Naive,' Conch Shell Had Corrected Him. 'he Simply Has Not Been Taught To Fear The Things You Fear.
Shells
Taught
Naive
Wit And Playfulness Represent A Desperately Serious Transcendence Of Evil. Humor Is Both A Form Of Wisdom And A Means Of Survival.
Mean
Evil
Survival
Solace? That's Why God Made Fermented Beverages And The Blues.
Beverages
Made
Solace
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.
Dark
Thinking
Soul
And What Would Our Ideas Of God, Of Religion, Be Like If They Had Come To Us Through The Minds Of Women? Ever Think Of That?
Thinking
Ideas
Mind
He Was Becoming Unstuck, He Was Sure Of That - His Bones Were No Longer Wrapped In Flesh But In Clouds Of Dust, In Hummingbirds, Dragonflies, And Luminous Moths - But So Perfect Was His Equilibrium That He Felt No Fear. He Was Vast, He Was Many, He Was Dynamic, He Was Eternal.
Clouds
Dust
Perfect
The Oyster Was An Animal Worthy Of New Orleans, As Mysterious And Private And Beautiful As The City Itself. If One Could Accept That Oysters Build Their Houses Out Of Their Lives, One Could Imagine The Same Of New Orleans, Whose Houses Were Similarly And Resolutely Shuttered Against An Outside World That Could Never Be Trusted To Show Proper Sensitivity Toward The Oozing Delicacies Within.
Beautiful
Animal
New Orleans
In The Haunted House Of Life, Art Is The Only Stair That Doesn't Creak.
Art
House
Lovely
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. What We Have To Do Is Work Like Hell At Making Additional Magic Right From The Start. It's Hard Work, But If We Can Remember To Do It, We Greatly Improve Our Chances Of Making Love Stay.
Love
Fall
Hard Work
Some Praise Me, Some Blame Me. I Go The Other Way. Sometimes Those Things That Attract The Most Attention To Us Are The Things Which Afford Us The Greatest Privacy
Loner
Attention
Way
If Love Eats The Donut, Does Time Eat The Hole?
Doe
Holes
Donuts
If Kissing Is Man's Greatest Invention, Then Fermentation And Patriarchy Compete With The Domestication Of Animals For The Distinction Of Being Man's Worst Folly, And No Doubt The Three Combined Long Ago, The One Growing Out Of The Others, To Foster Civilization And Lead Western Humanity To Its Present State Of Decline.
Kissing
Men
Animal
Never Be Afraid To Love, Not Even When There's A Chance You're Not Being Loved In Return.
Return
Chance
Afraid To Love
When I Sit Down To Write, I Just Let The Goose Out Of The Bottle.
Writing
Bottles
Geese
What Mattered To Abu Was The Music Of The Sentence. 'a Shadow Does Not Belong To The Object That Casts It.' To Abu, It Was A Little Poem. And In General, It Was The Poetics, The Music Of Things That Tossed His Confetti.
Shadow
Doe
Littles
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.
Fun
Adventure
Destiny
I Went To A Large Consolidated School In Appalachia. And I Wrote The Story When I Was In The Second Grade And I Took It Up To The Third Floor To The School Newspaper Office That Was Written And Edited By Juniors And Seniors.
Senior
School
Office
Hard Times And Funky Living Can Season The Soul, True Enough, But Joy Is The Yeast That Makes It Rise.
Hard Times
Joy
Soul
A Spirit Cannot Soar With Only One Wing.
Wings
Spirit
Soar
Our Similarities Bring Us To A Common Ground; Our Differences Allow Us To Be Fascinated By Each Other.
Differences
Common
Similarity
If The Novelist Isn't Surprised By Where His Book Ends Up, He Or She Probably Hasn't Written Anything Worth Remembering.
Book
Novelists
Remember
At The Typewriter You Find Out Who You Are.
Typewriters
Who You Are
The Odor Of Frying Bacon, Sausage Links, And Ham Tiptoed On Little Pig Feet All The Way To The North End Of The Second Floor. Inevitably, The Odor Made Her Simultaneously Ravenous And Nauseated. She Hated The Sensation. It Reminded Her Of Pregnancy. Every Sunday Morning, Leigh-cheri Awoke To A Pan Of Fried Fear.
Morning
Fear
Pregnancy
When We Can Converse With The Animals, We Will Know The Change Is Halfway Here. When We Can Converse With The Forest, We Will Know The Change Has Come.
Animal
Forests
Halfway
At Birth, We Emerge From Dream Soup. At Death, We Sink Back Into Dream Soup. In Between Soups, There Is A Crossing Of Dry Land. Life Is A Portage.
Dream
Land
Dry
When A Man Confines An Animal In A Cage, He Assumes Ownership Of That Animal. But An Animal Is An Individual; It Cannot Be Owned. When A Man Tries To Own An Individual, Whether That Individual Be Another Man, An Animal Or Even A Tree, He Suffers The Psychic Consequences Of An Unnatural Act.
Animal
Men
Psychics
Me? I Stand For Uncertainty, Insecurity, Bad Taste, Fun, And Things That Go Boom In The Night.
Fun
Night
Insecurity
You Don't Have To Be A Genius To Recognize One. If You Did, Einstein Would Never Have Gotten Invited To The White House.
White
House
Genius
Much More Than An Entertaining Set Of Exaggerated Facts, Fiction Is A Metaphoric Method Of Describing, Dramatizing And Condensing Historical Events, Personal Actions, Psychological States And The Symbolic Knowledge Encoded Within The Collective Unconscious; Things, Events And Conditions That Are Otherwise Too Diffuse And/or Complex To Be Completely Digested Or Appreciated By The Prevailing Culture.
Collective Unconscious
Historical
Fiction
Why Procrastinate When You Can Precognitate?
Procrastinating
Toys Are Made In Heaven, Batteries Are Made In Hell.
Heaven
Batteries
Toys
It Is More Important To Be Free Than To Be Happy.
Important
Growing Up Is A Trap," Snapped Dr. Robbins. "when They Tell You To Shut Up, They Mean Stop Talking. When They Tell You To Grow Up, They Mean Stop Growing. Reach A Nice Level Plateau And Settle There, Predictable And Unchanging, No Longer A Threat.
Growing Up
Nice
Mean
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.
Writing
Adventure
Journey
Jackson Pollock Said Once, "i Don't Really Feel That Many People In This World Are Alive." He Said, "that's Why I Like You, Tom. You're Alive."
I Like You
People
Alive
The Trouble With You Is That The Only Way You Can Communicate Is Through Art. You’ve Never Learned To Communicate Your Feelings To A Man. You Don’t Even Want To Communicate In A Relationship. You Think That If You Open Up To Love, You’ll Lose Your Independence Or Your Self-expression Or Creativity Or Whatever You Call All That Passionate, Wonderful Stuff That Makes You Feel Alive Inside.
Art
Love You
Creativity
Dreamily The Princess Stood Up. "i'm Not Sure If I Can Walk," She Said. "then I'll Carry You." "is That What Love Is?" "i No Longer Know What Love Is. A Week Ago I Had A Lot Of Ideas. What Love Is And How To Make It Stay. Now That I'm In Love, I Haven't A Clue. Now That I'm In Love, I'm Completely Stupid On The Subject.
Stupid
Princess
Love Is
We're Making It Up. The World, The Universe, Life, Reality. Especially Reality.
Reality
World
Universe
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.
Making Love
Answers
Serious
The Moon Invented Natural Rhythm. Civilization Uninvented It.
Moon
Civilization
Natural
The Highest Function Of Love Is That It Makes The Loved One A Unique And Irreplacable Being.
Love
Unique
Function
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.
Cheating
Winning
Games
I Removed The Freeway From Its Temporal Context. Overpasses, Cloverleafs, Exit Ramps Took On The Personality Of Mayan Ruins For Me. Without Destination, Without Cessation, My Run Was Often Silent And Empty; There Were No Increments, No Arbitrary Graduations Reducing Time To Functional Units. I Abstracted And Purified.
Running
Personality
Arbitrary
O Tequila, Savage Water Of Sorcery, What Confusion And Mischief Your Sly, Rebellious Drops Do Generate
Water
Confusion
Sorcery
Reality Whistles A Different Tune Underwater.
Reality
Tunes
Underwater
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.
Men
Artist
Order
Three Of The Four Elements Are Shared By All Creatures, But Fire Was A Gift To Humans Alone. Smoking Cigarettes Is As Intimate As We Can Become With Fire Without Immediate Excruciation. Every Smoker Is An Embodiment Of Prometheus, Stealing Fire From The Gods And Bringing It On Back Home. We Smoke To Capture The Power Of The Sun, To Pacify Hell, To Identify With The Primordial Spark, To Feed On The Marrow Of The Volcano. It’s Not The Tobacco We’re After But The Fire. When We Smoke, We Are Performing A Version Of The Fire Dance, A Ritual As Ancient As Lightning.
Home
Fire
Volcanoes
People Of Ze Wurl, Relax!
People
Relax
In East Of Eden, John Steinbeck Wrote That There's Never Been A Great Creative Collaboration. When The Beatles First Burst On The Scene, I Thought They Were Proving Him Wrong. Later, We Learned That Lennon And Mccartney Had Each Composed Their Pop Masterpieces Separately, Individually. So It Goes.
Eden
Creative Collaboration
East
Our Purpose Is To Consciously, Deliberately Evolve Towards A Wiser, More Liberated And Luminous State Of Being.
Purpose
States
Evolve
The Harsh Truth Is, Most Red-haired Men Look Like Blondes Who've Spoiled From Lack Of Refrigeration. They Look Like Brown-haired Men Who've Been Composted Out Behind The Barn. Yet That Same Pigmentation That On A Man Can Resemble Leaf Mold Or Junkyard Rust, A Woman Wears Like A Tiara Of Rubies.
Men
Mold
Barns
Rap Music... Sounds Like Somebody Feeding A Rhyming Dictionary To A Popcorn Popper.
Funny
Rap
Sound
White Folks Have Controlled New Orleans With Money And Guns, Black Folks Have Controlled It With Magic And Music, And Although There Has Been A Steady Undercurrent Of Mutual Admiration, An Intermingling Of Cultures Unheard Of In Any Other American City, South Or North; Although There Has Prevailed A Most Joyous And Fascinating Interface, Black Anger And White Fear Has Persisted, Providing The Ongoing, Ostensibly Integrated Fete Champetre With Volatile And Sometimes Violent Idiosyncrasies.
Fear
Gun
Cities
Meditation... Dissolves The Mind. It Erases Itself. Throws The Ego Out On Its Big Brittle Ass.
Meditation
Ego
Mind
The Goal Of This Generation's Pioneers Should Be To Restrict Procreation And Limit Consumption. They Should Also Take Every Opportunity To Make Themselves Happy, Realizing That The Key To Self-generated Happiness (the Only Reliable Kind) Is The Refusal To Take Oneself Too Seriously.
Opportunity
Self
Keys
I've Always Assumed That Every Time A Child Is Born, The Divine Reenters The World. Okay? That's The Meaning Of The Christmas Story. And Every Time That Child's Purity Is Corrupted By Society, That's The Meaning Of The Crucifixion Story. Your Man Jesus Stands For That Child, That Pure Spirit, And As Its Surrogate, He's Being Born And Put To Death Again And Again, Over And Over, Every Time We Inhale And Exhale, Not Just At The Vernal Equinox And On The Twenty-fifth Of December.
Jesus
Children
Men
Dreams Don't Come True. Dreams Are True.
Dream
True Dreams
Switters Was Actually Quite Fond Of Seattle's Weather, And Not Merely Because Of It's Ambivalence. He Liked It's Subtle, Muted Qualities And The Landscape That Those Qualities Encouraged If Not Engendered: Vistas That Seemed To Have Been Sketched With A Sumi Brush Dipped In Quicksilver And Green Tea. It Was Fresh, It Was Clean, It Was Gently Primal, And Mystically Suggestive.
Weather
Tea
Quality
Christianity Is Merely A System For Turning Priestesses Into Handmaidens, Queens Into Concubines, And Goddesses Into Muses.
Queens
Christianity
Muse
If Little Else, The Brain Is An Educational Toy.
Educational
Brain
Littles
Christians, And Some Jews, Claim We're In The "end Times," But They've Been Saying This Off And On For More Than Two Thousand Years.
Christian
Two
Years
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.
Diversity
Grace
World
True Stability Results When Presumed Order And Presumed Disorder Are Balanced.
Order
Results
Stability
Consider The Silent Repose Of The Sausage As Compared To The Aggressiveness Of Bacon.
Sausage
Silent
Repose
She Continued Weeping Until The Heat Of Her Tear Water, The Sheer Velocity Of Its Flow, Finally Obscured The Already Vague Circumstances Of Its Origins.
Water
Tears
Velocity
Just Because Something Didn't Happen Doesn't Mean It Isn't True.
Mean
Happens
Don't Confuse Symmetry With Balance.
Balance
Symmetry
Once One Pays Some Attention To Something, Then You Begin To See Evidence Of It Everywhere.
Attention
Pay
Evidence
Society Had A Crime Problem. It Hired Cops To Attack Crime. Now Society Has A Cop Problem.
Problem
Cop
Crime
Bland Writing - Timid, Antiseptic, Vanilla Writing - Is Nearly As Unhealthy As The Brutal And Dark. Instead Of Sipping, Say, Elixir, Nectar, Tequila, Or Champagne, The Reader Is Invited To Slurp Lumpy Milk Or Choke On The Author's Dust Bunnies.
Writing
Dark
Dust
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