“Reality is subjective, and there’s an unenlightened tendency in this culture to regard something as ‘important’ only if ‘tis sober and severe. Sure and still you’re right about your Cheerful Dum, only they’re not so much happy as lobotomized. But your Gloomy Smart are just as ridiculous. When you’re unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so very seriously. Your truly happy people, which is to say, your people who truly like themselves, they don’t think about themselves very much. Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin’ on himself and start payin’ attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form o’ self-indulgence.”

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About Tom Robbins

American novelist

Tom Robbins was an American novelist. He is known for his playful, comic fiction, especially his “seriocomedies.” Among his best-known books is Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, published in 1976 and later adapted into a 1993 film by Gus Van Sant. His final work, Tibetan Peach Pie, appeared in 2014 and he described it as an “un-memoir.” From 1970, he lived in La Conner, Washington, where he wrote nine of his books.

More from Tom Robbins (176 quotes) →

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Books by Tom Robbins

Another roadside attraction

1977

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Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

1981

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Still Life with Woodpecker

1990

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Villa Incognito

2004

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Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

2003

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