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The reality is in this head. Mine. I’m the projector at the planetarium, all the closed little universe visible in the circle of that stage is coming out of my mouth, eyes, and sometimes other orifices also.

Thomas Pynchon

What are the stars but points in the body of God where we insert the healing needles of our terror and longing?
THOMAS PYNCHON

Body God Healing Need Stars Terrorism
If patterns of ones and zeros were ‘like’ patterns of human lives and death, if everything about an individual could be represented in a computer record by a long string of ones and zeros, then what kind of creature would be represented by a long string of lives and deaths?
THOMAS PYNCHON

Computer Creature Death Human Kind Live Mathematics Patten Record Representation
All variables are independent.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Independent One Liner Variable
Despair came over her, as it will when nobody around has any sexual relevance to you.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Despair Herself Sex Yourself
Let me be unambiguous. I prefer not to be photographed.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Choice Fame Myself Photography
Ills are many, blessings few, but dreams tonight will shelter you.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Blessing Dreams Home Night Protection 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
What goes around may come around, but it never ends up exactly the same place, you ever notice? Like a record on a turntable, all it takes is one groove’s difference and the universe can be on into a whole ‘nother song.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Difference Notice Place Record Universe Yourself
She may know a little, may think of herself, face and body, as ‘pretty’ but he could never tell her all the rest, how many other living things, birds, nights smelling of grass and rain, sunlit moments of simple peace, also gather in what she is to him.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Beautiful Body Face Herself Light Live Moments Peace Simplicity Sun Thinking
Like so many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts–census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Freedom Identity Name Place Purpose Road
To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Convince Difficult Growth Humanity Spiritual
Length is usually intensity. Not time.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Intense Time
For every kind of vampire, there is a kind of cross.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Fantasy Kind Vampire
What sort of an age is this where a man becomes one’s enemy only when his back is turned?
THOMAS PYNCHON

Age Enemy Himself Man
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
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
There is nothing so loathsome as a sentimental surrealist.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Emotion Realist Sentimental
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
Real flight and dreams of flight go together. Both are part of the same movement. Not A before B, but all together.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Connection Dreams Movement Reality Togetherness
Perhaps its familiarity rendered it temporarily invisible to you.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Illusion Invisible Temporary Yourself
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
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Question Worry Wrong Yourself
He decided that we suffer from great temporal homesickness for the decade we were born in.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Born Decision Greatness Home Sick Suffering Temporary
Get too conceptual, too cute and remote, and your characters die on the page.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Character Concept Death Page Writing Yourself
Let the peace of this day be here tomorrow when I wake up.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Day Myself Peace Wake Up
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
My belief is that “recluse” is a code word generated by journalists; meaning, “doesn’t like to talk to reporters.”
THOMAS PYNCHON

Believe Code Journalist Media Myself Report Talk Word

The reality is in this head. Mine. I’m the projector at the planetarium, all the closed little universe visible in the circle of that stage is coming out of my mouth, eyes, and sometimes other orifices also.

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The reality is in this head. Mine. I’m the projector at the planetarium, all the closed little universe visible in the circle of that stage is coming out of my mouth, eyes, and sometimes other orifices also.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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