Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.
Tom RobbinsWhen a culture is being dumbed down as effectively as ours is, its narrative arts (literature, film, theatre) seem to vacillate between the brutal and the bland, sometimes in the same work.
Tom RobbinsI 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.
Tom RobbinsSerious 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.
Tom Robbins