Home > Author > Robert Wringham
1 " Comfort and security are all well and good, but not at the cost of liberty, love and lustiness. The Bohemian knows that money, property and status have little to do with the content of one’s character, and that professional success and widespread celebration have little to do with talent. Of value to the Bohemian is spiritual integrity and creative freedom. The Bohemian would sooner live in poverty than submit to an undesirable job. "
― Robert Wringham , Escape Everything!
2 " Reading is important. It’s not primarily escapism (though it can be, and there’s nothing wrong with some of that in good measure) and it’s not primarily a way of passing the time. Reading is important to the good life because it stokes the furnaces of our intellect, allows us to expand our understanding of the universe, both inner and outer, for practical gain and simple pleasure. It can induce awe, inspire respect, excite, piss off, and intrigue. These are things that make life worth living. "
3 " All we do is work to maximise our consumption privileges and to be able to tell people at parties that we’re a lawyer, an artist or a police officer. "
4 " With today’s technology, social attitudes and appetite for self-actualisation, we’d ideally look upon our work with a sense of pride, involvement and accomplishment. But we’re rarely given the chance. Instead, we pretend to love our jobs with an almost idiotic zeal, while being secretly exhausted and insulted by them. "
5 " There was something funny I saw while travelling about which I remember thinking “oh, that’s worth telling the readers about,” only now I can’t remember what it was. It may have involved a waiter. Or possibly a ceramic tile. I’d have to go into a sensory deprivation tank to catch the tail of that memory and I’m not sure I have the time to do that before my dinner’s ready. "
― Robert Wringham , Stern Plastic Owl
6 " Reduction is the least observed of the three R’s of environmentalism (‘reduce, reuse, recycle’) but it’s probably the most important. Reuse and recycling are sensible measures in an over-productive society, but why not neutralise the problem of overproduction at the source? Instead of choosing to act efficiently at the end of a product’s life cycle by reusing or recycling it, we should stop said product from being made in the first place by eliminating consumer demand for it. If the rainforests must be burned and the oceans poisoned to cater for the essentials of human life, then so be it and we’ll call it an inevitable pity; but for that to happen in the name of games consoles, cell phones and chocolate fountains is a wanton and avoidable shame. "
7 " The electric saw worked like a charm and, a few non-Bananagrammatical but highly Rabbinical words and a miniature parasol later, I was a newly-married man. "
8 " Should consumerism be the last thing we accomplish as a species, after all this evolution and the miraculous series of accidents that granted our sentience? Would that not be an utterly dull and inane end to our history? "
9 " If we were all minimalists instead of conspicuous consumers, there would be less demand on the world’s resources and we’d have a smaller, less berserk economy. We’d be less likely to harm the only planet we’ll ever have, and the super-rich would have fewer ways to exploit us. "
10 " Sir, you couldn’t count the number of cylinders I’m firing on. "
11 " Mine is the hand-me-down duffle coat of Wit. "
12 " It’s libertine this and libertine that, but so far as I can tell, he only has about six notches in his bedpost and it never once crossed his mind that he could lower himself onto it. "
13 " Why would anyone use the word “eatery?” As in, “oh, it’s over there between the readery and the drinkery but thankfully not downwind of the shittoria. "
14 " A celebrity sighting has to happen in your world, not theirs. You can’t very well, for example, get a job as an extra on Coronation Street, perch yourself on a bar stool in the Rovers and sit there, stroking your chin, saying, “blimey, that’s Rita from Coronation Street.” Also inadmissible are celebrity sightings that took place through a celebrity’s bedroom window or at the bottom of a pit you dug. "
― Robert Wringham
15 " To my own ear, I sound like Charles de Gaulle himself but when I put my new-found phrases into practice, the post office clerk from whom I’ve asked to buy a stamp will look at me like I’ve asked him to administer a rectal thermometer. "
16 " She used to be a tremendously affectionate and cooperative cat, perfectly happy for you to pick her up and carry her around on your shoulder like a parrot. Time was, you could even pop her on your head like a living fur hat and she’d stay there, content to grow fat on your loving brainwaves. Now, in her advanced years, she’s developed a certain coolness. Though there are, of course, limits to one’s cool when one looks like a not-particularly-sophisticated glove puppet. "
17 " The wickedest thing I ever did was convince my little sister that the orange hippo was the hungriest one. "
― Robert Wringham , A Loose Egg
