Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you're a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace - and maybe even glory.
Tom RobbinsReligions lead us to believe that the soul is the ultimate family jewel and that in return for our mindless obedience, they can secure it for us in their vaults, or at least insure it against fire and theft. They are mistaken.
Tom RobbinsSlavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.
Tom RobbinsMy personal motto has always been: Joy in spite of everything. Not just [mindless] joy, but joy in spite of everything. Recognizing the inequities and the suffering and the corruption and all that but refusing to let it rain on my parade. And I advocate this to other people.
Tom RobbinsHardly 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.
Tom RobbinsIf thereโs a thing, a scene, maybe, an image that you want to see real bad, that you need to see but it doesnโt exist in the world around you, at least not in the form that you envision, then you create it so that you can look at it and have it around, or show it to other people who wouldnโt have imagined it because they perceive reality in a more narrow, predictable way. And thatโs it. Thatโs all an artist does.
Tom Robbins