This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Are you aware that rushing toward a goal is a sublimated death wish? It's no coincidence we call them 'deadlines'.
A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Much Ado About Nothing, Act ii, Scene 3
A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii, Scene 4
Quiet |
Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, where death's approach is seen so terrible!
Good |
A merry heart goes all the day, your sad tires in a mile-a. A Winter’s Tale, Act iv, Scene 3
And all the gods go with you! I upon your sword sit laurel victory; and smooth success be strew'd before your feet.
Mother |
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye, or russet-pated choughs, many in sort, rising and cawing at the gun's report, sever themselves and madly sweep the sky— so at his sight away his fellows fly. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act iii, Scene 2
Mother |
Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth; but either it was different in blood . . . Or else misgraffed in respect of years . . . Or else it stood upon the choice of friends. . . Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, war, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, making it momentany as a sound, swift as a shadow, short as any dream brief as the lightning in the collied night, that, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, and ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' the jaws of darkness do devour it up: so quick bright things come to confusion. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Scene 1
As a man thinketh our remedies in ourselves do lie which we ascribe to heaven.
And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds, His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, Is far beyond a prince's delicates, His viands sparkling in a golden cup, His body couched in a curious bed, When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him. Henvry VI, Part III, Act ii, Scene 5
Mother |
All my pretty ones? Did you say all? — O, hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?
Mother |
As by your high imperial majesty I had in charge at my depart for France, as procurator to your excellence, to marry Princess Margaret for your grace, so, in the famous ancient city Tours, in presence of the Kings of France and Sicil, the Dukes of Orleans, Calabar, Bretagne, and Alencon, seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops, I have performed my mask and was espoused. Henry VI, Act I, Scene 1
Abundance | Books | Ceremony | Fear | Heart | Love | Rage | Recompense | Strength | Learn |
Ay, that I had not done a thousand more. Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think, few come within the compass of my curse,— wherein I did not some notorious ill, as kill a man, or else devise his death, ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it, accuse some innocent and forswear myself, set deadly enmity between two friends, make poor men's cattle break their necks; set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night, and bid the owners quench them with their tears. Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves, and set them upright at their dear friends' doors, even when their sorrows almost were forgot; and on their skins, as on the bark of trees, have with my knife carved in Roman letters, 'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.' Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things as willingly as one would kill a fly, and nothing grieves me heartily indeed but that I cannot do ten thousand more. Titus Andronicus, Act v, Scene 1
Soul |
CALIBAN: Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven? STEPHANO: Out o' th' moon, I do assure thee; I was the Man i' th' Moon, when time was. CALIBAN: I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee. My mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog and thy bush. The Tempest, Act ii, Scene 2
Mother |