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830f318
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They caressed one another until their hides shone. They embraced until their 206 bones squeaked like mice. Their bed was a boat in a weird sea.
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Tom Robbins |
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83c1c48
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The problem here, Gwen, is that the more desperate you are to achieve financial success and the tighter you hold on to what you've got, the greater your chances of losing it. Money's like love in that respect.
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Tom Robbins |
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563065d
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The rougher the world gets around me, the sweeter I seem to myself.
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Tom Robbins |
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88ce7be
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Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation.
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Tom Robbins |
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48f8098
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The universe does not have laws. It has habits. And habits can be broken.
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Tom Robbins |
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401c4de
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Sentimental memories were like sugar-water icicles.
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Tom Robbins |
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d329ff3
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Timbuktu. The last pure place. Isolation being the mother of purity. All men are jealous of Timbuktu because Timbuktu is removed from men, it's the wholeness men have fractured, the sacred extreme they've traded away.
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Tom Robbins |
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8422148
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April. Spring was on the land like an itch. The whole countryside seemed to be scratching itself awake--lazily, luxuriously, though occasionally scratching so hard its nails hit bone, that old cold calcium that lies beneath our tingles.
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Tom Robbins |
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3655d27
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Every time a person goes to the mall, she loses a little piece of her soul
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Tom Robbins |
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58338da
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Matters are very seldom all black or white. They can even be both at the same time - The Beer Fairy
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Tom Robbins |
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4e80e0c
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Courage is where you find it. Bravery that comes from a bottle-- or from book or from a sermon-- lacks the full strength and purity of bravery that comes straight from the heart.
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Tom Robbins |
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e0eaa76
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Meditation," said his teacher, "hasn't got a damn thing to do with anything, 'cause all it has to do with is nothing. Nothingness. Okay? It doesn't develop the mind, it dissolves the mind. Self-improvement? Forget it, baby. It erases the self. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass. What good is it? Good for nothing. Excellent for nothing. Yes, Lord, but when you get down to nothing, you get down to ultimate reality. It's then and exactl..
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emptiness
meditation
nothingness
peace
spirituality
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Tom Robbins |
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8a3bf86
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Like women in general, like Aries women in particular, like redheaded Aries women in greater particular, she loathed to be misunderstood. Injustice against others outraged her, injustice against herself set her to boiling like brimstone soup.
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Tom Robbins |
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623ff17
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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 melanch..
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Tom Robbins |
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fbb20d7
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The international situation is desperate, as usual.
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Tom Robbins |
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dcddc30
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Birth, copulation, and death. Fine. In truth, however, there were at least two other things in which Amanda strongly believed. Namely: magic and freedom.
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Tom Robbins |
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7b52af9
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People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve.
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Tom Robbins |
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bb47a92
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anything that says Yes to life is automatically saying No to war.
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Tom Robbins |
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c42b6da
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A little boy, he can play like he's a fireman or a cop--although fewer and fewer are pretending to be cops, thank God--or a deep-sea diver or a quarterback or a spaceman or a rock 'n roll star or a cowboy, or anything else glamorous and exciting (Author's note: What about a novelist, Jellybean?), and although chances are by the time he's in high school he'll get channeled into safer, duller ambitions, the great truth is, he can be any of th..
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Tom Robbins |
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0877232
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It is as if the soul of the continent is weeping. Why does it weep? It weeps for the bones of the buffalo. It weeps for magic that has been forgotten. It weeps for the decline of poets. It weeps for the black people who think like white people. It weeps for the Indians who think like settlers. It weeps for the children who think like adults. It weeps for the free who think like prisoners. Most of all, it weeps for the cowgirls who think li..
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feminism
modern-atrocities
poets
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Tom Robbins |
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28174f6
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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 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.
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Tom Robbins |
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5b46823
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The prevalence of social ugliness made commitment to physical beauty all the more essential. And the very presence in life of double-wide mobile homes, Magic Marker graffiti, and orange shag carpeting had the effect of making ills such as poverty, crime, repression, pollution and child abuse seem tolerable. In a sense, beauty was the ultimate protest, and, in that it generally lasted longer than an orgasm, the ultimate refuge. The Venus de ..
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Tom Robbins |
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a96f632
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The highest men are calm, silent and unknown...The true masters seldom reveal themselves, except in the vibrations the leave behind, and upon which the lesser gurus build their doctrines.
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introvert
men
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Tom Robbins |
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9cf2631
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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.
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law-school
leadership
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Tom Robbins |
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16fc09a
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Tilli stroked her Chihuahua. Max's heart made a sound like the sleigh bells on Mrs. Santa Claus's dildo.
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Tom Robbins |
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e3371f2
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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.
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Tom Robbins |
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70f22d0
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Someone once commented that I have a great thirst for knowledge, to which I replied, "What the hell? I'll drink anything."
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Tom Robbins |
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f24f0c8
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You see, at that juncture in my life I wasn't evolved enough to understand the fluid nature of romantic love (its indifference to human cravings for permanence and certainty); its uncivilized, undomesticated nature (less like a pretty melody than a foxish barking at the moon), or, more importantly perhaps, that it's a privilege to love someone, to truly love them; and while it's paradisiacal if she or he loves you back, it's unfair to deman..
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Tom Robbins |
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91db31c
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The lesson was the same: This program is subject to change -- often unexpectedly, sometimes in the batting of an eye. It's the best argument I know against suicide.
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Tom Robbins |
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9dfb978
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Morality depends on culture. Culture depends on climate.
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morality
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Tom Robbins |
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e1f1f84
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on a number of occasions this book has made reference to magic, and each time you've shaken your head, muttering such criticisms as "What does he mean by 'magic' anyhow? It's 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, "Doesn't the author realize that one can't write about magic? One can create it but not discuss it. It's muc..
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mysticism
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Tom Robbins |
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67d33fb
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At the meeting of our lips, peacocks went into hiding, elephants suffered memory loss, camels developed a maddening thirst, and dinosaurs long thought to be extinct turned up on the evening news.
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Tom Robbins |
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f3b54d4
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Boomer had asked her once, in a telephone call from Virginia, "Why does this stuff, these hand-painted hallucinations that don't do nothin' but confuse the puddin' out of a perfectly reasonable wall, why does it mean so much to you?" It was a poor connection, but he could have sworn he heard her say, "In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn't creak."
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painting
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Tom Robbins |
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dbec5e9
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'how then does soul differ from spirit?' you're probably asking yourself. although he must have been reasonably sure nobody was. "Well, soul is darker of color, denser of volume, saltier of flavor, rougher of texture, and tends to be more maternalistic than paternalistic: soul is connected to Mother Earth just as spirit is connected to Father Sky. Of course, mothers and fathers are prone to copulation, and in their commingled state, soul an..
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Tom Robbins |
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305f296
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On second thought, it's unlikely that anybody can teach another to excel in bed. Rather, what they might do is awaken in the other her or his predisposition for copulative excellence.
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Tom Robbins |
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e5ab087
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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.
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Tom Robbins |
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eb59de3
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to perform without a net is ecstasy." Papa Phom had often reminded her, "To perform without focus is fatal. "
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Tom Robbins |
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67e5ea5
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Maybe what I admired most about John Steinbeck is that he never mortgaged his 45-acre heart for a suite in an ivory tower.
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Tom Robbins |
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93ccb03
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You don't need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Don't even listen, simply wait. Don't even wait. Be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you. To be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet. --Franz Kafka
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Tom Robbins |
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a9eab5e
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'how then does soul differ from spirit?' you're probably asking yourself. although he must have been reasonably sure nobody was. "Well, soul is darker of color, denser of volume, saltier of flavor, rougher of texture, and tends to be more maternalistic than paternalistic: soul is connected to Mother Earth just as spirit is connected to Father Sky. Of course, mothers and fathers are prone to copulation, and in their commingled state, soul an..
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Tom Robbins |
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5515559
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Cowgirl Interlude (Bonanza Jellybean) She is lying on the family sofa in flannel pajamas. There is Kansas City mud on the tips and heels of her boots, boots that have yet to savor real manure. Fourteen, she knows she ought to remove her boots, yet she refuses. A Maverick rerun is on TV; she is eating beef jerky, occasionally slurping. On her upper stomach, where her pajama top has ridden up, is a small deep scar. She tells everyone, includi..
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Tom Robbins |
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aa461d5
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Perhaps everything was connected to everything, in a discernible if nebulous way, and if one might only trace the fibers and filaments of those connections, one might... One might what? Observe the Grand Design? Untangle all the puppet strings and discover whose hands (or claws) are pulling them? End the ancient search for order and meaning in the universe?
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Tom Robbins |
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3abc524
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Oh, no, darlin', none o' that. Sure and they destroyed some cells, no doubt about it, but 'twas for the good. 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'.
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Tom Robbins |
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d560fd2
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As they say in my country, have a nice day.
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Tom Robbins |