Neat Quotes from "Still Life With Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins, 1980.


p44-45: "The Twelve Most Famous Redheads:
1. Lucille Ball, comedienne
2. Gen. George Custer, military maverick
3. Lizzie Borden, hatchetwoman
4. Thomas Jefferson, revolutionary
5. Red Skelton, comic
6. George Bernard Shaw, playwright
7. Judas Iscariot, informer
8. Mark Twain, humorist
9. Woody Allen, humorist
10. Margaret Sanger, feminist
11. Scarlet O'hara, bitch
12. Bernard Mickey Wrangle, bomber
From this list, the analytically minded might conclude that persons with red hair tend to be either dangerous or funny."

p55: "As if to sandpaper her burn, an oddly beautiful woman in a turban and robe had stopped her in the lobby to inform her (above the noise of workmen busily replacing window glass) that on the planet Argon redheads were considered evil and that if she had any plans for space travel, she'd better change her ways. 'Red hair is caused by sugar and lust,' the woman, who was blonde, confided. 'Highly evolved beings do not indulge in sugar and lust.' "

p116-117: " 'Don't let yourself be victimized by the age you live in. It's not the times that will bring us down, any more than it's society. When you put the blame on society, then you end up turning to society for the solution. ... There's a tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility and treat them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your soul. It's not men who limit women, it's not straights who limit gays, it's not white who limit blacks. What limits people is lack of character.' "

p157: "On the fourth day, she decided to think, in an organized manner, about the problem of romance. 'When we're incomplete, we're always searching for someone to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on -- series polygamy -- until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.' "