Tom Robbins Quotes

Magic lies in challenging what seems impossible.

However far modern science and techniques have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson; nothing is impossible.

These are ideas. I could say that they just came to me, but it would be more accurate to say that I went to them. Ideas - and new connections between ideas - lead you away from commonly held perceptions of reality. Ideas lead you out here. Ideas lead you into the darkness.

To be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been.

A lot of people get really stuck in this idea that everything's been done and there's nowhere left to go.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

I think there is something to be said for what you can do when you don't know what you aren't supposed to be able to do.

I think if you're really good at what you do, you can see outside the box.

If you want people to think out of the box, you shouldn't create the box in the first place.

If I start playing by the rules, I will inhibit myself of the possibilities that lie beyond. I don't like to be framed or given borders to operate in or curtail my thought process and as a writer it's not only my choice but also my need to go beyond the given framework.

Kids have some of the best ideas - bringing new eyes to old problems.

Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box

The Wright brothers didn't contemplate the staying on the ground of things. Alexander Graham Bell didn't contemplate the noncommunication of things. Thomas Edison didn't contemplate the darkness of things. In order to float an idea into your reality, you must be willing to do a somersault into the unconceivable and land on your feet, contemplating what you want instead of what you don't have.

What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems... there's no law of physics preventing them.

If your mind is at work, we're in danger of reproducing another cliche. If we can keep our minds out of it and our thoughts out of it, maybe we'll come up with something original.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. It is a process; it's not random.

My company and people think I'm wacky when I have an idea... I know if I have an idea, no one will want to go through it. But if I persist, people will go through it.

If you're gonna make connections which are innovative... you have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does.

Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, 'Just watch!'

True creativity often starts where language ends.

Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

Take advantage of the ambiguity in the world. Look at something and think what else it might be.

Feynman once said, 'Science is imagination in a straitjacket.' It is ironic that in the case of quantum mechanics, the people without the straitjackets are generally the nuts.

I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right.