50+ Thomas Pynchon Quotes | Minimalist Quotes

Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Dreams Essence Stupidity
Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Earth Illusion Meaning Philosophy Spiritual Transcendence World
Time is never wasted if you remember to bring along something to read.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Book Reading Time Wasted Time Yourself
Why should things be easy to understand?
THOMAS PYNCHON

Easy Philosophy Understand
What, I should only trust good people? Man, good people get bought and sold every day. Might as well trust somebody evil once in a while, it makes no more or less sense.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Evil Goodness Meaning Myself People Sold Trust
Despair came over her, as it will when nobody around has any sexual relevance to you.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Despair Herself Sex Yourself
Our history is an aggregate of last moments.
THOMAS PYNCHON

History Moments Ourselves
You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Creature God Himself People Touch Yourself
All variables are independent.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Independent One Liner Variable
A woman is only half of something there are usually two sides to.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Side Story Woman
All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Animal Break Freedom Healing Kind Loud Nature Plant Preserve Theory
The general public has long been divided into two parts; those who think that science can do anything and those who are afraid it will.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Afraid Belief Division People Public Science
Ills are many, blessings few, but dreams tonight will shelter you.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Blessing Dreams Home Night Protection Yourself
If there is something comforting – religious, if you want – about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Comfortable Condition Connection Health Mental Religious Sick Worry
Teamwork,” Koteks snarled, “is one word for it, yeah. What it really is is a way to avoid responsibility. It’s a symptom of the gutlessness of the whole society.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Avoid Responsibility Society Symptom Team Word Work
It takes, unhappily, no more than a desk and writing supplies to turn any room into a confessional.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Confession Happiness Room Transformation Writing
There is no real direction here, neither lines of power nor cooperation. Decisions are never really made – at best they manage to emerge, from a chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations and all around assholery.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Best Cooperation Decision Destruction Direction Illusion Management Power Reality Support
You know what a miracle is. Not what Bakunin said. But another world’s intrusion into this one. Most of the time we coexist peacefully, but when we do touch there’s cataclysm.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Existence Fantasy Intrude Miracle Mission Peace Spiritual Time Touch World Yourself
But with a sigh he had released her hand, while she was so lost in the fantasy that she hadn’t felt it go away, as if he’d known the best moment to let go.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Fantasy Feeling Hands Let Go Lost Moments
I was dreaming about my grandfather. A very old man, at least as old as I am now, 91. I thought, when I was a boy, that he had been 91 all his life. Now I feel as if I have been 91 all my life.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Boy Dreams Himself Life Man Myself Old Thinking
It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Beginning Character Force Simplicity Try Wrong
Can’t say it often enough — change your hair, change your life.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Change Enough Hairs Life Yourself
Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Early Ignorance Life Ourselves Structure Trouble Writing
Life’s single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Accident Lesson Life Man Sanity Time
Some of us are afraid of dying; others of human loneliness. Profane was afraid of land or seascapes like this, where nothing else lived but himself.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Afraid Death Himself Human Land Live Lonely Sea
Love with your mouth shut, help without breaking your ass or publicizing it: keep cool, but care.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Break Care Help Logic Public Yourself
Information. What’s wrong with dope and women? Is it any wonder the world’s gone insane, with information come to be the only real medium of exchange?
THOMAS PYNCHON

Amazing exchange Information Reality Sanity Woman Wonderful Wrong

Thomas Pynchon Quotes

Famous American novelists