Tom Robbins

“As a grandiose self-deception, war is o’ the same magnitude as religion. We embrace war or religion - usually both at the same time - as a means o’ defeatin’ death, but neither o’ them do a blinkin’ thing but sanction dyin’. Throughout history, Death’s best friend has been a priest with a knife.”

“Besides, if I am truly immortal, I am my own grandchild, my own descendant, my own dynasty. I am not obliged to live on through what I pass down to others.”

“If being alive is not a virtue, then there is little virtue in virtue.”

“ People are never perfect, but love can be. Loving makes perfect. Loving makes itself. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?”

“But man by his nature is an unnatural animal. If any creature stands a chance of defeating death, it is man.”

“Fear limits love”

“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.”

“It was wonderful, Pris.""What was, honey? The meeting? The champagne?""The eclipse," said Ricki. "It was probably the most real thing I've ever seen, but it was also like a dream. You know what I mean? Real and unreal, beautiful and strange, like a dream. It got me high as a kite, but it didn't last long enough. It ended too soon and left nothing behind.""That's how it is with dreams," said Priscilla. "They're the perfect crime.”

“You misunderstand me. I do not *fear* death. I *resent* it. Everything must die, apparently, and I am no exception. But I want to be consulted. You know what I mean? Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots. I have a new passion, my darlings, a passion for being myself, and for being more than previously has been manifested for a single lifetime. I am determined to die at my own convenience. Therefore, I journey to the east, where, I have been told, there are men who have taught death some manners.”

“Is this blasphemy, my lord?" "I think not. Those who crafted me, be they gods or demons, crafted this mind that shapes my resistance to their schemes. Surely they were wise enough, at the wheel where I was thrown, to anticipate future resistance in the heart they were abuilding.”

“My heart is a Latin American food stall and your love is a health inspector from Zurich.”

“There are smiles that actually travel along telephone wires, although no engineer at Bell Laboratories could explain how it works.”

“Sentimental memories were like sugar-water icicles.”

“Some families ran their own little version of the Middle East.”

“On the subject of Egypt, Ellen Cherry was so vague she thought Ramses II was a jazz piano player. From that, we might conclude that she was equally dumb about jazz.”

“Christ said that illumination is found only by putting everything one has in jeopardy. Thou, of all humans, should understand the courage that is required to reject the secure blessings of society in order to woo the unpredictable ecstasies of the solitary soul. It is true that Christ had little enthusiasm for dance or copulation, that he took ’right’ and ’wrong’ too seriously and set himself apart from the natural world,”

“Of our nine planets, Saturn is the one that looks like fun.”

“Belli ki birisi piramitleri akılda bulundurmamızı istemiş çünkü piramit sembolü düzenli olarak ellediğimiz ya da gözlemlediğimiz şeylerde dikkat çekici bir biçimde yer alıyor. Herhangi bir gün içinde piyasada iki milyardan fazla bir dolarlık banknot dolaşır. Yüzyılın büyük bir bölümünde Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'nde içilen sigaraların yarısı Camel idi, yani yılda aşağı yukarı otuz milyar. Piramitlerin modern çağın en popüler iki nesnesini süslemesinin rastlantısal bir seçim olma ihtimali zayıf. Birisi dolaların ve sigaraların geniş çapta dolaşımda olacağını biliyordu ve piramitlerin de onlarla birlikte gezmesini sağlamıştı. Orijinal yapılardan mesafe ve zaman nedeniyle ayrı düşen bir kültüre piramitlerin, eğer almasını öğrenirsen bize verecek değerli bir şeye sahip oldukları hatırlatılacaktı. .... Gerçek hükümetler gece geç saatlerde, İran halılarının en zengin örnekleriyle döşeli penceresiz odalarda yıllanmış konyaklar ve Havana puroları içerek toplantı yapıyorlardı. .... Yirminci yüzyılın son çeyreğinin anonim barbarları gibi- .... Hakikat tınısı seslerin en güzelidir; gerçi kimi kadınlar yatakta kesinlikle onunla boy ölçüşecek gürültüler çıkarır. .... Berberiler şuna inanırdı: Mezarda bellek bulunmadığına göre defin yığınından alınan toprak insanın üzüntülerini, bilhassa mutsuz aşkın yol açtığı kalp kırıklığını unutmasına yardımcı olabilirdi. .... Esasen kitle güdülerini düzenlemek, yönlendirmek ve tatmin etmek üzere tasarlanmış bu toplumda insanın birey olarak sahip olduğu sessiz bölgelere sunulacak ne var? Din? Sanat? Doğa? Hayır, kilise, dini standart bir halk gösterisine dönüştürmüştür, müze de aynısını sanat için yapmıştır. Grand Canyon ile Niagara Şelaleleri'ne o kadar çok bakılmıştır ki, bu yerler bitkin düşmüş çok fazla sayıda aptal göz tarafından emilerek içleri boşaltılmıştır. İnsanın birey olarak sahp olduğu sessiz bölgelere sunulacak ne var? Geceyarısı kağır tabaka soğuk tavuk kemiğine ne dersiniz, emriniz doğrultusunda uzayan ya da kısalan alev rengi ruja ne dersiniz, hiç tanımadığınız bir "kuş" tarafından terk edilmiş suni köpükten bir kuş yuvasına ne dersiniz, sağanak yağmurda arabayla evinize giderken birbirini boş yere izleyen bir çift sileceğe ne dersiniz, sinemada koltuğun altından ayakkabınıza değen bir şeye ne dersiniz, körelmiş kurşunkalemlere, şirin çatallara, tombul küçük radyolara, kutular dolusu kravata ve küvet başında duran banyo köpüklerine ne dersiniz? Evet otistik görüş ile deneysel dünya arasındaki bağı kuran, bu şeylerdir, bu uçurtma ipleridir, zeytinyağı şişeleridir ve meyveli şeker ezmeleriyle dolu Sevgililer Günü kalpleridir. Bu şeyleri hakiki gizemli ışıklarında göstermektir Ay'ın amacı. .... İnsan vücudundan büyük nesneler aleni olma niteliği taşır. Ay, bir şey ne kadar aleni olabilirse o kadar alenidir. Fakat Ay, mahremiyet duygusu uyandırmakta nadiren başarısızlığa uğrar. .... Aramak, akılsız, nevrotik, deliye dönmüş bir halde ya da korkakça yapıldığında bir saklanma biçimi olabilir. .... -Sen de benim düşündüğümü mü düşünüyorsun? -Sanmam. Domates kelimesinin kökenini düşünüyordum. .... Haliyle çok yağmur yağıyordu. Meşhur Seattle yağmuru. Aşk, kalıcı olacaksa ayaklarının ıslanmasına hazırlıklı olmalıydı. .... Mutlu bir çocukluğa sahip olmak için asla geç değil.”

“-Yürüyebileceğimden emin değilim. -Öyleyse seni taşırım. -Aşk bu mu? -Aşk nedir, bilmiyorum artık. Bir hafta önce pek çok fikrim vardı. Aşk nedir, nasıl kalıcı kılınır. Şimdi aşığım ve en ufak bir fikrim yok. Şimdi aşığım ve bu konuda bir aptaldan farkım yok. ....Dolunayın gerçekleştiği güne, Ay’ın ne büyüdüğü ne de küçüldüğü güne, Babilliler “yürek dinlencesi” anlamına gelen Sabat adını vermişlerdi. Bu günde Ay tanrıçasının, Babil’de bilinen adıyla Ay’daki kadın İştar’ın adet gördüğüne inanılırdı; çünkü neredeyse her eski ve ilkel toplumda olduğu gibi Babil’de de çok eski zamanlardan beri bir kadının aybaşı kanaması geçirirken çalışması, yemek pişirmesi ya da yolculuk etmesi tabu sayılırdı. Bildiğimiz Sebt gününün kökeni olan Sabat’ta erkekler de kadınlar gibi dinlenmek zorundaydı; çünkü Ay adet görürken tabu herkes için geçerliydi. Başlangıçta (ve doğal olarak) ayda bir kez gözlemlenen Sebt, daha sonra Hristiyanlar tarafından Yaratılış mitleriyle birleştirilip işe yarar bir şekilde haftalık hale getirildi. Böylelikle günümüzde sert adaleli, sert kasketli, sert zihinli erkekler, adet görmeye ilişkin arketip psikolojik bir tepki sayesinde pazar günleri işe gitmekten kurtulmuşlardır. .... Lüzumlu ve lüzumsuz delilikler vardır. İkinci gruba girenler Güneş karakteri taşır birinci gruba girenlerse Ay ile bağlantılıdır. Lüzumsuz delilikler, hırs, saldırganık ve ergenlik öncesine özgü endişeden oluşan gevrek bir karışımdır, çok uzun zaman önce atılmış olması gereken bir çöp yığınıdır. Lüzumlu delilikler, kişinin, akranları ne kadar kaçık bulsa da erdemli ve doğru olduklarını içgüdüleriyle sezdiği dürtülerdir. Lüzumsuz delilikler insanın başını kendisiyle belaya sokar. Lüzumlu delilikler insanın başını başkalarıyla belaya sokar. İnsanın başının başkalarıyla belaya girmesi her zaman daha iyidir. Hatta lüzumlu olabilir. Şiir, şiirin iyi yazılmışı, Ay özelliklerini taşır ve lüzumlu deliliklerle ilgilidir. Gazetecilik Güneş özellikleri taşır (Güneş adında pek çok gazete varken hiçbirinr Ay adı verilmemiştir) ve lüzumsuzluklara adanmıştır. .... Saygı ve itaat yeminleri etmek yerine, yardım ve yataklık edeceğimiz sözünü vermeliyiz belki.. .... "Dünyanın öbür ucuna dek onun peşinden gideceğim." diye hıçkıra hıçkıra ağladı. Evet şekerim ama dünyanın bir ucu yok. Kolomb bunu saptamıştı. .... (Mutluluk gözyaşları sahne sağından çıkar. Şaşkınlık gözyaşları sahne solundan girer, yer ışıklarına doğru ilerler.) .... Bir pastanın üstünde yirmi mum. Bir pakette yirmi Camel. Geride bıraktığımız yirmi yüzyıl. Peki ya sonra? Bir pastanın üstünde yirmi mum. Bir pakette yirmi Camel. Federal kodeste yirmi ay. Genç bir kızın boğazından aşağı yuvarlanan yirmi kadeh tekila. Hazreti İsa'nın son kez kıç üstü oturuşundan bu yana yirmi yüzyıl geçmiş ve onca zaman sonra bizler tutkunun çekip gittiğinde nereye gittiğini hala bilmiyoruz. .... Ahmaklar, örgütlü davalara hizmet konusunda en uygun kişilerdir; çünkü nadiren yapacak daha yaratıcı bir işleri olur ve böyle bir işleri olsa bile dar görüş nedeniyle kısıtlandıklarından o işi muhtemelen yapmazlar. .... Bernard'ın dolunay ışığının dört buçuk metre yükseklikteki kırk vatlık bir ampule eşit olduğunu söylediğini hatırladı. .... "Bak hayatım, sevgilin nam salmış biri. Orospu çocuğunun her şeyden bomba yapabileceği söyleniyor." .... Dört elementten üçü tüm yaratıklar tarafından paylaşılır ama ateş yalnızca insanoğluna bağışlanmış bir hediyeydi. .... Bir nefes sigaraya, bir lokma yemeğe, bir fincan kahveye, bir parça göte ya da temposu hızlı bir öyküye ihtiyaç duyduğu halde nasibine hepi topu felsefe düşen her zeki kişinin yapacağı gibi dik dik bakıyorlardı ona. .... İnsan kendi kurallarını da bozamadıktan sonra kimin kurallarını bozabilirdi?”

“We seem to face an enemy who, no matter how many times we win, will best us in the end. He has so many allies: time, disease, boredom, stupidity, religious quackery, and bad habits.”

“Every daydream that involves the past sports in its hatband a ticket to the grave.”

“I'm an outlaw, not a hero. I never intended to rescue you. We're our own dragons as well as heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.”

“Now and again, one could detect in a childless woman of a certain age the various characteristics of all the children she had never issued. Her body was haunted by the ghost of souls who hadn't lived yet. Premature ghosts. Half-ghosts. X's without Y's. Y's without X's. They applied at her womb and were denied, but, meant for her and no one else, they wouldn't go away. Like tiny ectoplasmic gophers, they hunkered in her tear ducts. They shone through her sighs. Often to her chagrin, they would soften the voice she used in the marketplace. When she spilled wine, it was their playful antics that jostled the glass. They called out her name in the bath or when she passed real children in the street. The spirit babies were everywhere her companions, and everywhere they left her lonesome - yet they no more bore her resentment than a seed resents uneaten fruit. Like pet gnats, like phosphorescence, like sighs on a string, they would follow her into eternity.”

“Maybe what I admired most about John Steinbeck is that he never mortgaged his 45-acre heart for a suite in an ivory tower.”

“Ritual he liked, but compulsory routine he hated. Thus, he resented every minute that he now had to surrender to showering, shampooing, shaving, and flossing and brushing his teeth. If mere men could devise self-defrosting refrigerators and self-cleaning ovens, why couldn't nature, in all its complex, inventive magnificence, have managed to come up with self-cleaning teeth? "There's birth," he grumbled, "there's death, and in between there's maintenance.”

“There are three mental states that interest me. These are: one, amnesia; two, euphoria; three, ecstasy. Amnesia is not knowing who one is and wanting desperately to find out. Euphoria is not knowing who one is and not caring. Ecstasy is knowing exactly who one is - and still not caring.”

“How could you be so naive as to tell a human being the truth? Men live by embedding themselves in ongoing systems of illusion. Religion. Patriotism. Economics. Fashion. That sort of thing. If you wish to gain the favor of the two-legged ilk, you must learn to fabricate as wholeheartedly as they do.”

“The theater of man is not always 'amusing', but it is always theater, and theater can be marveled at even when its content is somber and harsh. You're acquainted with Greek tragedy?”

“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.”

“There's no such thing as security in this life sweetheart, and the sooner you accept that fact, the better off you'll be. The person who strives for security will never be free. The person who believes she's found security will never reach paradise. What she mistakes for security is purgatory. You know what purgatory is, Gwendolyn? It's the waiting room, it's the lobby. Not only does she have the wrong libretto, she's stuck in the lobby where she can't see the show.”

“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), a margin whose width and length may be determined by unknown factors but whose navigation is determined by the measure of the adventurer's nerve and wits. It is exhilarating to live by one's nerves or toward the summit of one's wits.”

“Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.”

“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.”

“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.”

“We live now in an information technology. Flowers have always lived in an information technology. Flowers gather information all day. At night, they process it. This is called photosynthesis. As our neocortex comes into full use, we, too will practice photosyntesis. As a matter of fact, we already do, but compared for flowers, our kind is primitive and limited. For one thing, information gathered from daily newspapers, soap operas, sales conferences and coffee klatches is inferior to information gathered from sunlight....Either because our data is insufficient or because our processing equipment is not fully on line, our own noctural processing is part-time work. The information our conscious minds receive during waking hours is processed by our unconscious during so called "deep sleep". We are in deep sleep only two or three hours a night. For the rest of our sleeping session, the unconscious mind is off duty. It gets bored. It craves recreation. So it plays with the material at hand. In a sense, it palys with itself. It scrambles memories, juggles images, rearranges data, invents scary or titillating stories. This is what we call "dreaming".”

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

“The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind.”

“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.”

“Don't confuse symmetry with balance.”

“Cries for help are frequently inaudible.”

“Laws, it is said, are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistics on the number of lives that are clobbered yearly as a result of laws: outmoded laws; laws that found their way onto the books as a result of ignorance, hysteria or political haymaking; antilife laws; biased laws; laws that pretend that reality is fixed and nature is definable; laws that deny people the right to refuse protection. A survey such as that could keep a dozen dull sociologists out of mischief for months.”

“Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization.”

“To specialize is to brush one tooth. When a person specializes he channels all of his energies through one narrow conduit; he knows one thing extremely well and is ignorant of almost everything else.”

“Nature is not infallible. Nature makes mistakes. That's what evolution is all about: growth by trail and error. Nature can be stupid and cruel. Oh, my, how cruel! That's okay. There's nothing wrong with Nature being dumb and ugly because it is simultaneously--paradoxically--brilliant and superb.But to worship the natural at the exclusion of the unnatural is to practice Organic Fascism--which is what many of my pilgrims practice. And in the best tradition of fascism, they are totally intolerant of those who don't share their beliefs; thus, they foster the very kinds of antagonism and tension that lead to strife, which they, pacifists one and all, claim to abhor. To insist that a woman who paints berry juice on her lips is somehow superior to the woman who wears Revlon lipstick is sophistry; it's smug sophistical skunkshit. Lipstick is a chemical composition, so is berry juice, and they both are effective for decorating the face. If lipstick has advantages over berry juice then let us praise that part of technology that produced lipstick. The organic world is wonderful, bot the inorganic isn't bad, either. The world of plastic and artifice offers its share of magical surprises.A thing is good because it's good, not because it's natural. A thing is bad because it's bad, not because it's artificial. It's not a damn iota better to be bitten by a rattlesnake than shot by a gun.”

“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.”

“Disorder is inherent in stability. Civilized man doesn't understand stability. He's confused it with rigidity. Our political and economic and social leaders drool about stability constantly. It's their favorite word, next to 'power.' 'Gotta stabilize the political situation in Southeast Asia, gotta stabilize oil production and consumption, gotta stabilize student opposition to the government' and so forth.Stabilization to them means order, uniformity, control. And that's a half-witted and potentially genocidal misconception. No matter how thoroughly they control a system, disorder invariably leaks into it. Then the managers panic, rush to plug the leak and endeavor to tighten the controls. Therefore, totalitarianism grows in viciousness and scope. And the blind pity is, rigidity isn't the same as stability at all. True stability results when presumed order and presumed disorder are balanced. A truly stable system expects the unexpected, is prepared to be disrupted, waits to be transformed.”

“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.”

“If little else, the brain is an educational toy.The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it, too. Sometime they'd rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner from the way they play with theirs. The result is, a few games out of a toy department of possibilities are universally and endlessly repeated. If you don't play some people's game, they say that you have "lost your marbles," not recognizing that, while Chinese checkers is indeed a fine pastime, a person may also play dominoes, chess, strip poker, tiddlywinks, drop-the-soap or Russian roulette with his brain.”

“People aren't trees, so it is false when they speak of roots.”

“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.”