Oguz > Oguz's Quotes

“To diminish the worth of women, men had to diminish the worth of the moon. They had to drive a wedge between human beings and the trees and the beasts and the waters, because trees and beasts and waters are as loyal to the moon as to the sun. They had to drive a wedge between thought and feeling...At first they used Apollo as the wedge, and the abstract logic of Apollo made a mighty wedge, indeed, but Apollo the artist maintained a love for women, not the open, unrestrained lust that Pan has, but a controlled longing that undermined the patriarchal ambition. When Christ came along, Christ, who slept with no female...Christ, who played no musical instrument, recited no poetry, and never kicked up his heels by moonlight, this Christ was the perfect wedge. Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“It's never too late to have a happy childhood.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“The function of the artist is to provide what life does not.”
― Tom Robbins

“There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.”
― 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, Still Life with Woodpecker

“Who knows how to make love stay?

1. Tell love you are going to Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if loves stays, it can have half. It will stay.

2. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a moustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need.”
― Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

“My faith is whatever makes me feel good about being alive. If your religion doesn't make you feel good to be alive, what the hell is the point of it?”
― Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

“People tend the take everything too seriously. Especially themselves. Yep. And that's probably what makes 'em scared and hurt so much of the time. Life is too serious to take that seriously.”
― Tom Robbins

“Something has got to hold it together. I'm saying my prayers to Elmer, the Greek god of glue.”
― Tom Robbins

“The fact is, what I hated in the Church was what I hated in society. Namely, authoritarians. Power freaks. Rigid dogmatists. Those greedy, underloved, undersexed twits who want to run everything. While the rest of us are busy living - busy tasting and testing and hugging and kissing and goofing and growing - they are busy taking over.”
― Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

“This did not annoy Amanda for it had long been her theory that human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another.”
― Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

“The only authority I respect is the one that causes butterflies to fly south in fall and north in springtime.”
― Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
― Charles Bukowski

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“there are worse things
than being alone
but it often takes
decades to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late”
― Charles Bukowski

“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”
― Charles Bukowski

“There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you.”
― Charles Bukowski

“. . . Don't live in the world as if you were renting or here only for the summer, but act as if it was your father's house. . .Believe in seeds, earth, and the sea, but people above all. Love clouds, machines, and books, but people above all." Nazim Hikmet, 20th century Turkish poet”
― Nahid Rachlin

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
― Allen Saunders

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche