"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."
— Tom Robbins

"The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being."
— Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)

"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."
— Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker)

"A sense of humor...is superior to any religion so far devised."
— Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)

"Just because you're naked doesn't mean you're sexy. Just because you're cynical doesn't mean you're cool."
— Tom Robbins

"When two people meet and fall in love, there's a sudden rush of magic. Magic is just naturally present then. We tend to feed on that gratuitous magic without striving to make any more. One day we wake up and find that the magic is gone. We hustle to get it back, but by then it's usually too late, we've used it up. What we have to do is work like hell at making additional magic right from the start. It's hard work, but if we can remember to do it, we greatly improve our chances of making love stay."
— Tom Robbins

"Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?
Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself."
— Tom Robbins

"And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."
— Kurt Vonnegut (A Man Without a Country)

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five)

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five)

"Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle)

"In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in his cosmic loneliness.

And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat, looked around, and spoke. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.

And He went away."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle)

"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
— Oscar Wilde

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."
— Oscar Wilde

"Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes."
— Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
— Ayn Rand

""In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too""
— Saul Bellow