Tom Robbins Quotes

Failure is fantastic, because you meet yourself and get to know your limitations. This is how I express myself, and I can't do it any other way.

My interest lies in my self-expression - what's inside of me - not what I'm in.

Trying to give an individual a voice has always kind of been my mission in my life. As an actor, I've always seen that was something that needed to be done. You need to find that voice inside of you so that you can stand up and be who you really are.

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

I do so play an instrument! I play air! I play the air with my fingers, and I'm in touch with the deepest emotions within. It took me a while to learn that whatever I feel like doing is the right thing. If I want to play an invisible instrument, I will.

I really don't have any secrets. I've never met a photographer whose work I respected that had a secret because the secret lies within each and every one of us.

I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier.

Training readers to expect a voice or subject matter from me would interfere with the reinvention I crave. At the same time, I feel almost too able to disappear at times.

You just get out there and be what you want to be. That's part of evolving and part of staying true to yourself - part of remaining alive in a real authentic, long-term sense creatively: not listening to what other people tell you to be.

Be creative, have a good time, and be yourself.

I don't even really try to do something different. I just do what's authentic to me.

There are stories I wanted to tell, and they are not defined by what I look like.

You've got to be oblivious to other people, the push and pull of other people's opinions, the way other people measure success. It's then that you realize you are 100 percent who you are and you have to use that who-you-are 100 percent in order to create great things.

Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom.

There’s a great expression in Twelve Step programs: Act as if. Act as if you’re a writer. Sit down and begin. Act as if you might just create something beautiful, and by beautiful I mean something authentic and universal. Don’t wait for anybody to tell you it’s okay. Take that shimmer and show us our humanity. That’s your job.

To gain your own voice you have to forget about having it heard.

Even if you tried to extinguish your personality, what is left in the story will reflect it, perhaps by its negation. Our lives provide the bricks from which we build these cathedrals.

Why wouldn't you write to escape yourself as much as you might write to express yourself? It's far more interesting to write about others.

This, I believe, is the great Western truth: that each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else's.

Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.

Do not let it be your aim to be something, but to be someone.

'Birdman' came from a very beautiful side of me, from a part of honesty and surrender about things.

To be at acting school, it was kind of the first time you felt the freedom to be as much of yourself as you wanted. People weren't going to judge you.

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.

At which point should we let go and do what we want to do, and when should we submit to rules? Coming to terms with our true natures and who we really are has always been a fascination to humans. I know it fascinates me.