You’ve heard me quote it 750,000 times over the course of the almost-year (!!!) that I’ve had this blog up and running – that is, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins. One of my go-to novels for inspiration when I feel bogged down and thwarted by the city, it’s people & society in general. While the book is not suited for those who get offended easily and get naked only with the lights off, it’s a masterpiece of the 70′s suited for anyone who craves answers, self-love and freedom.
Because I’m so passionate about the soul of this book and because I know that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea I’m going to first direct you to it’s wikipedia page and second, share with you some of my favorite passages from the gritty 366 pages.
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But plans are one thing and fate another.
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How we shape our understanding of others’ lives is determined by what we find memorable in them…
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Just as a piece of shell can take all the fun out of an egg salad sandwich, just as the advent of an Ice Age can poop a million garden parties, just as a disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business, so can a fit of asthma rather spoil the first date between a young woman and an Indian.
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The Great Secret (which, as we’ve determined, is this: one has not only the ability to perceive the world but an ability to alter his perception of it; or, more simply, one can change things by the manner in which one looks at them).
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Women are tough and rather coarse. They were built for the raw, crude work of bearing children. You’d be amazed at what they can do when they divert that baby-hatching energy into some other enterprise.
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I’ve proven that people aren’t trees, so it is false when they speak of roots.
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It takes more than vodka to fuel magic. It takes risks. It takes EXTREMES.
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And like all good journalists, we shall present out facts in an order that will satisfy the famous five W’s: Wow, whoopee, wahoo, why-not and whew.
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That’s what it’s about for the cowgirls, and maybe everybody else. A lot of life boils down to the question of whether a person is going to be able to realize his fantasies, or else end up surviving only through compromises he can’t face up to.
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Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it.
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So you think you’re a failure, do you? Well, you probably are. What’s wrong with that? In the first place, if you’ve any sense at all you must have learned by now that we pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free.
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In the eternity of Joy, pluralized, deurbanized man, at ease with his gentle technologies, will smile and sigh when the earth begins to shake. ”She is restless tonight,” they will say. ”She dreams of loving.” ”She has the blues.”
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They ache to quit playing at living and to really live, but alas, it takes time and trouble to piece the loose ends of their lives together and they are dogged by the notion that time is running out.
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Why does it weep? It weeps for the bones of the buffalo. It weeps for the magic that has been forgotten. It weeps for the decline of poets.
It weeps
for the black people who think like white people.
It weeps
for the Indians who think like settlers.
It weeps
for the children who think like adults.
It weeps
for the free who think like prisoners.
Most of all, it weeps
for the cowgirls who think like cowboys.
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It was lovemaking … Even though it was nasty. Maybe especially because it was nasty. Love is smutty business, you know.
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Life isn’t simple; it’s overwhelmingly complex. The love of simplicity is an escapist drug, like alcohol. It’s an antilife attitude. these ‘simple’ people who sit around in drab clothes in bleak rooms sipping peppermint tea by candlelight are mocking life. They are unwittingly on the side of death.
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I realize that most people require externalized, objective symbols to hang on to. That’s too bad. Because what they are looking for, whether they know it or not, is internalized and subjective.
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I believe in everything; nothing is sacred.
I believe in nothing; everything is sacred.
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xo & yw
