Tom Robbins

July 22, 2012

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On this date in 1936, writer Tom Robbins was born in North Carolina. He attended several colleges, then became a copy editor, working for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His fiction books include: Another Roadside Attraction (1978), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1980), Jitterbug Perfume (1984), Skinny Legs and All (1990), Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994), Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2001) and Villa Incognito (2004). The Seattle author, who is private about his personal life, appears to be a deistic critic of religion.

“Soul is not even that Crackerjack prize that God and Satan scuffle over after the worms have all licked our bones. That's why, when we ponder—as sooner or later each of must—exactly what we ought to be doing about our soul, religion is the wrong, if conventional, place to turn. Religion is little more than a transaction in which troubled people trade their souls for temporary and wholly illusionary psychological comfort—the old give-it-up-in-order-to-save-it routine. Religions lead us to believe that the soul is the ultimate family jewel and that in return for our mindless obedience, they can secure it for us in their vaults, or at least insure it against fire and theft. They are mistaken.”

— Character Stubblefield from Villa Incognito, 2004, by Tom Robbins

Compiled by Annie Laurie Gaylor (FFRF)