We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
Tom RobbinsRead
Outlaws, like lovers, poets, and tubercular composers who cough blood onto piano keys, do their finest work in the slippery rays of the moon.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Creativity often flourishes in unconventional or challenging circumstances.
In this quote, Tom Robbins suggests that some of the most profound and moving artistic expressions emerge from those who live on the fringes of society, much like outlaws or tortured artists. The imagery of 'slippery rays of the moon' suggests a beautiful yet unstable environment, where passion and suffering can lead to exceptional creativity.
Themes
CreativityArtLifeMoonOutlawsPoets
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the nature of artistic inspiration, this quote can illustrate the connection between hardship and creativity.
More from Tom Robbins
All quotes →There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.
Tom RobbinsRead
The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously.
Tom RobbinsRead
I'm an outlaw, not a philosopher, but I know this much: there's meaning in everything, all things are connected, and a good champagne is a drink.' Bernard began to sing again. Timidly, Leigh-Cheri joined in. Between verses, they opened another bottle. The popping of its cork echoed throughout the great stone chamber. Of the three billion people on earth, only Bernard and Leigh-Cheri heard the popping of the cork and its echoes. Only Bernard and Leigh-Cheri passed out under the tablecloth.
Tom RobbinsRead
The Divine was beyond description, beyond knowing, beyond comprehension. To say that the Divine was Creation divided by Destruction was as close as one could come to definition. But the puny of soul, the dull of wit, weren't content with that. They wanted to hang a face on the Divine. They went so far as to attribute petty human emotions - anger, jealousy, etc - to it, not stopping to realize that if God were a being, even a supreme being, our prayers would have bored him to death long ago.
Tom RobbinsRead
On their sofas of spice and feathers, the concubines also slept fretfully. In those days the Earth was still flat, and people dreamed often of falling over edges.
Tom RobbinsRead
Similar quotes
As artists, we have an opportunity to help the public evolve, raise consciousness and awareness, teach, heal, enlighten and inspire in ways the democratic process may not be able to touch. So we keep it moving.
Lauryn HillRead
I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all.
Tony KushnerRead
That’s one of the nice things about writing, or any art; if the thing’s real, it just lives. All the attendant hoopla about it, the success over it or the critical rejection—none of that really matters. In the end, the thing will survive or not on its own merits. Not that immortality via art is any big deal. Truffaut died, and we all felt awful about it, and there were the appropriate eulogies, and his wonderful films live on. But it’s not much help to Truffaut.
Woody AllenRead
Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.
Alan MooreRead
To direct actors is difficult. To direct actors in another language is more difficult, but directing non-actors in another language is one of the craziest things that I have done and one of the most rewarding experiences I have had.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituRead
Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence? I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds. Open your doors and look abroad. From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before. In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.
Rabindranath TagoreRead