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

Thomas Pynchon

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
You go from dream to dream inside me. You have passage to my last shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you’ve found life. I’m no longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are ‘yours’ and which are ‘mine.’ It’s past sorting out.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Dreams Ghost Image Life Passage Past Space Word Yourself
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
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
Ills are many, blessings few, but dreams tonight will shelter you.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Blessing Dreams Home Night Protection Yourself
Can’t say it often enough — change your hair, change your life.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Change Enough Hairs Life Yourself
You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Creature God Himself People Touch Yourself
There is nothing so loathsome as a sentimental surrealist.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Emotion Realist Sentimental
Why should things be easy to understand?
THOMAS PYNCHON

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

Character Concept Death Page Writing Yourself
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

Eyes Head Reality Universe Visible
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
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
Time is never wasted if you remember to bring along something to read.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Book Reading Time Wasted Time Yourself
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
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
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
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
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Question Worry Wrong Yourself
All variables are independent.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Independent One Liner Variable
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
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
Every weirdo in the world is on my wavelength.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Myself Weird World
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
For every kind of vampire, there is a kind of cross.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Fantasy Kind Vampire
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

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

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

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