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Thomas Pynchon Quotes

born 1937 United States

Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. (born May 8, 1937) is an American writer based in New York City, known for his dense and complex works of fiction.

United States
Essayists
Novelists

Also known as: Pynchon, Thomas

Random Thomas Pynchon quote

53 quotes

Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth.

The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

It is usually not wise to discuss matters of costume with people like this, — politics or religion being far safer topicks.

Mason & Dixon (1997)

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

Against the Day (2006)

What are the stars but points in the body of God where we insert the healing needles of our terror and longing?

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

Paranoia's the garlic in life's kitchen, right, you can never have too much.

Bleeding Edge (2013)

Death glided by, shadowless, among the empties on the grass.

The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

"History, the proverb says, is made at night. The European civil servant normally sleeps at night. What waits in his IN basket to confront him at nine in the morning is history."

"Politics is a kind of engineering isn't it. With people as your raw material."

Why should things be easy to understand?

A million bureaucrats are diligently plotting death and some of them even know it.

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

"Dream tonight of peacock tails,
Diamond fields and spouter whales.
Ills are many, blessings few,
But dreams tonight will shelter you."

This is America, you live in it, you let it happen. Let it unfurl.

The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

The illustrations were woodcuts, executed with that crude haste to see the finished product that marks the amateur. True pornography is given us by vastly patient professionals.

The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

Merle's all-night illumination prolonged itself into an inescapable glow that began to keep him awake.

Against the Day (2006)

For a boy not getting any he had more woman problems than anybody he knew.

Let me be unambiguous. I prefer not to be photographed.

Christmas Eve, 1955, Benny Profane, wearing black levis, suede jacket, sneaker and big cowboy hat, happened to pass through Norfolk, Virginia.

The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting an apple. Everything is where it is, no clearer than usual, but certainly more present. So much has to be left behind now, so quickly.

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

A screaming comes across the sky.

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Pynchon (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.