Meredith > Meredith's Quotes

“The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.”
― 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

“I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
― Mark Twain

“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

“It was autumn, the springtime of death. Rain spattered the rotting leaves, and a wild wind wailed. Death was singing in the shower. Death was happy to be alive. The fetus bailed out without a parachute. It landed in the sideline Astroturf, so upsetting the cheerleaders that for the remained of the afternoon their rahs were more like squeaks.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“Don't let yourself be victimized by the age you live in. It's not the
times that will bring us down, any more than it's society. When you
put the blame on society, then you end up turning to society for the
solution. Just like those poor neurotics at the Care Fest. There's a
tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsiblity and treat
them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with
your soul. It's not men who limit women, it's not straights who limit
gays, it's not whites who limit black. what limits people is lack of
character. What limites people is that they don't have the fucking
nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.
Yuck....It's a wonderful time to be alive. As long as one has enough
dynamite. --pg. 116-117”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”
― John Waters

“You should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans.”
― Tom Robbins

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Here's to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“I drink to make other people more interesting.”
― Hemingway, Ernest

“Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Things on the essential list: vodka, Nine Inch Nails, a steady supply of mortal men, and an all-purpose bitchy attitude.”
― Richelle Mead

“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“No good at life, but very funny sometimes with the commentary.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“You mean you would have me blow up something just because I didn’t approve of it? What do you think I am, a vandal? A fascist? A fucking critic?”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

“IF THIS TYPEWRITER CAN’T DO IT, then fuck it, it can’t be done.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

“Criminals, because they’re plagued with guilt, often will surrender and go quietly. Outlaws, because they’re pure, never will.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

“Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

“As a grandiose self-deception, war is o’ the same magnitude as religion. We embrace war or religion - usually both at the same time - as a means o’ defeatin’ death, but neither o’ them do a blinkin’ thing but sanction dyin’. Throughout history, Death’s best friend has been a priest with a knife.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
― Howard Zinn

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
― Howard Zinn

“I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president — which means, in our time, a dangerous president — unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”
― Howard Zinn

“If you look at history, even recent history, you see that there is indeed progress. . . . Over time, the cycle is clearly, generally upwards. And it doesn't happen by laws of nature. And it doesn't happen by social laws. . . . It happens as a result of hard work by dedicated people who are willing to look at problems honestly, to look at them without illusions, and to go to work chipping away at them, with no guarantee of success — in fact, with a need for a rather high tolerance for failure along the way, and plenty of disappointments.”
― Noam Chomsky

“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”
― Anaïs Nin