A life in quotes: Tom Robbins
A prolific writer and editor, Robbins aligned with the hippie sensibilities of the 1960s, writing books under his guiding philosophy of 'serious playfulness' – outlandish characters, absurd metaphors and fantastical prose, like a hit of literary LSD. His novels, including Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Another Roadside Attraction and Still Life With Woodpecker, garnered a cult-following, even as they were dismissed by mainstream critics as overwrought.
Here are some of his most memorable quotes:
What I try to do, among other things, is to mix fantasy and spirituality, sexuality, humor and poetry in combinations that have never quite been seen before in literature. And I guess when a reader finishes one of my books … I would like for him or her to be in the state that they would be in after a Fellini film or a Grateful Dead concert.
– to January Magazine, 2000
Minds were made for blowing.
– Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, 1994
Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need.
– Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, 1976
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 dimensions 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.
– Still Life with Woodpecker, 1980
The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.
– Jitterbug Perfume, 1984
Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words 'make' and 'stay' become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.
– Still Life with Woodpecker
Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously.
– to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2007
We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
– Still Life with Woodpecker
A sense of humor … is superior to any religion so far devised.
– Jitterbug Perfume
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.
– Jitterbug Perfume
Establishment critics, to this day, write me off as a counter-culture writer, even though of my nine novels, the last six have had nothing to do with counter-culture things. And I wouldn't have missed the '60s for a billion dollars – but neither I nor my life's work can be defined by counter-culture sensibilities.
– to NPR, 2014
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.
– Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
To say that you can't take life seriously and that life shouldn't be taken seriously is not to say that life is trivial or frivolous. Quite the contrary. There's nothing the least bit frivolous about the playful nature of the universe. Playfulness at a fully conscious level is extremely profound. In fact there is nothing more profound. Wit and playfulness are dreadfully serious transcendence of evil.
– to January Magazine, 2000
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Can Mel Robbin's viral ‘Let Them' theory really change your life?
Boomer: I'm fed up with washing my teens' mouldy plates. Gen Z: You've got to let them. Let them wash up? They'll be there for weeks and I could do without their dirty crockery sprouting the next global pandemic. The house value will plummet. No, use the 'let them' theory. If they want to live in filth, let them. A parenting strategy that says leave them to rot? They threatened me with ChildLine when I took away their Xbox. It's not leaving them to rot, it's mindfully surrendering to things you can't control. In the words of the theory's creator, 56-year-old Mel Robbins, it 'creates emotional peace for you and a better relationship with others'. I'm not sure our relationship would be better if I had let you give yourself a fringe with the kitchen scissors. You should read Robbins' book, The Let Them Theory. It sold 100,000 copies in its first week and topped both The New York Times' and the Sunday Times' bestseller lists for a month. You know what they say – if someone's daft enough to spend £22.99 on a book full of shoddy life advice, let them. Don't be so closed minded. On TikTok #LetThemTheory has had 15 million views and it helps you rationalise any issue. Take dating. If your partner isn't ready to commit, Robbins says, just let them go. She's spun 20 chapters of psychobabble out of a theory that amounts to 'don't worry about what you can't fix and don't hold unwilling boyfriends hostage'. Hardly. One Refinery29 writer applied it for a month and said it changed her life. 'It's freeing not to care,' she wrote, 'but instead focus on your own decisions and thoughts… it leads to a greater sense of inner peace.' Their editor clearly has a very 'let them' attitude if they let them publish this drivel. But even Oprah Winfrey told her 22.5 million Instagram followers that Robbins' book is a 'life-changing tool for those seeking to regain power and peace'. Marie Antoinette had a very let them attitude – and look how that ended. You're deflecting with humour, but working on your emotional intelligence makes you a better wife, mum and businesswoman. You try being a better wife, mum and businesswoman when juggling your boss's demands with calls from school saying Jimmy's been sick over his PE kit again. That's why you need to set boundaries. You can follow 'boundary coach' Kami Orange on TikTok, as she gives her 280,000 followers prepared scripts to protect their peace. OK, so what do I say when my child is sick? 'I need today off to hold space for my child who's currently navigating a systemic virus. I'm consciously choosing to put parenting first rather than perpetuate cycles of emotional abandonment.' They'd think I was 'currently navigating' a mental breakdown. Let's try this scenario: what do I say if I'm sick? 'I need to recentre, reset and regulate my physical and mental health. Thank you for supporting a trauma-informed workflow.' No wonder the economy's going down the drain if we're all recentring, resetting and regulating on company time. Haven't you listened to psychobabble queen Meghan Markle's Confessions Of A Female Founder podcast with CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, who created two billion-pound dating apps by 'fundamentally rearchitecting' boundaries between personal and work life? I'm with that reader who said in the FT about Meghan: 'She's one American export I'd gladly support tariffs on.' We've talked about women supporting women. Meghan's podcast is about how 'the success of every woman should be an inspiration to another. We should raise each other up.' You're right. Let them radiate joy and 'fundamentally rearchitect' boundaries to their hearts' content. In the meantime I'll be exposing their nonsense with my own podcast.
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