# Quote — Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

> Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning or an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. There is only one serious question. And that question is: "Who knows how to make love stay?".

- Author: [Tom Robbins](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins.md)
- Book: [Still Life with Woodpecker](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins/still-life-with-woodpecker.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Robbins#Still_Life_with_Woodpecker_(1980)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins/still-life-with-woodpecker/albert-camus-wrote

## More from this book

> Twenty candles on a cake. Twenty Camels in a pack. Twenty months in the federal pen. Twenty shots of tequila down a young girl's gullet. Twenty centuries since Our Lord's last pratfall, and after all that time we still don't know where passion goes when it goes.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins/still-life-with-woodpecker/twenty-candles-on-a-cake.md)

> Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. It's not the tobacco we're after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins/still-life-with-woodpecker/three-of-the.md)

> They glared at her the way any intelligent persons ought to glare when what they need is a smoke, a bite, a cup of coffee, a piece of ass, or a good fast-paced story, and all they're getting is philosophy.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins/still-life-with-woodpecker/they-glared-at-her.md)