black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

All investigations of Time, however sophisticated or abstract, have at their true base the human fear of mortality.

Thomas Pynchon

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
Get too conceptual, too cute and remote, and your characters die on the page.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Character Concept Death Page Writing Yourself
Someday she might replace whatever of her had gone away by some prosthetic device, a dress of a certain color, a phrase in a letter, another lover.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Color Device Herself Lover Replacement
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
Time is never wasted if you remember to bring along something to read.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Book Reading Time Wasted Time Yourself
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
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
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
They plot, they plot, sleeping or afoot they never let up.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Let Go Planning Sleep
Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Earth Illusion Meaning Philosophy Spiritual Transcendence World
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Question Worry Wrong Yourself
It all comes down, as it must, to the desires of individual men. Oh, and women too of course, bless their empty little heads.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Blessing Desire Empty Man Woman
Shall I project a world?
THOMAS PYNCHON

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

Despair Herself Sex Yourself
There was no difference between the behavior of a god and the operations of pure chance.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Behavior Belief Chance Difference God Luck Operation Purity
Length is usually intensity. Not time.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Intense Time
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
She thougt of sunrise over the library slope at Cornell University that nobody out on it had seen because the slope faces west.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Education Herself Rise See Structure Sun 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
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
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
Let me be unambiguous. I prefer not to be photographed.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Choice Fame Myself Photography
Let the peace of this day be here tomorrow when I wake up.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Day Myself Peace Wake Up
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
Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Dreams Essence Stupidity
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
If the world offered nothing, nowhere to support or make bearable whatever her private grief was, then it is that world, and not she, that is at fault.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Grief Mistake Offering Privacy Support World

All investigations of Time, however sophisticated or abstract, have at their true base the human fear of mortality.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

All investigations of Time, however sophisticated or abstract, have at their true base the human fear of mortality.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Thomas Pynchon Quotes