Author Tom Robbins Lived a Life of “Enchantment”

Tom Robbins at his home in La Connor, Washington, 1981
Credit: Alan Hillyer / Writer Pictures via AP

Tom Robbins, one of the leading cult novelists of the 1960s, had strong convictions about living life fully while not taking it too seriously. And since the man lived to age 92, dying earlier this month at his longtime home in La Conner, Washington, it’s worth revisiting some of his assertions about the secrets of a long, happy life.

Robbin’s second and best known novel, “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” became a bestseller and a cult classic, launching him into literary stardom.

Robbins said that he “always wanted to lead a life of enchantment,” and he did seem to have a charmed life. For starters, he was born with a literary gift at a time when reading novels was still a popular diversion. In 2025, when the average person consumes stories by binging streamed content, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which a novelist could achieve rock-star status, but that’s exactly what Robbins attained by his third novel, “Still Life with Woodpecker” in 1980, when lines of fans wound around bookstores where he was appearing, and high school girls mobbed him in Australia.

Robbin’s voice emerged at a time of great experimentation in American society, including the arts, and his wildly imaginative, metaphor-driven prose felt like the literary equivalent of psychedelic music. Boomers probably remember their first Tom Robbins novel in the same way they remember their first Doors or Grateful Dead concert.

Perhaps the best expression of his joyfully spontaneous and rebellious philosophy was something he likely never thought would be noted or remembered – a commencement speech delivered to a small crowd of 20 students graduating at The Off Campus School, an alternative high school program in the island town of Oak Harbor, near Seattle.

Robbins began by warning his young audience not to listen to their elders, who were telling them to “grow up” and become an “adult.”

“The sad, funny truth is adults are nothing but tall children who have forgotten how to play,” he told them.

“When people tell you to grow up, they mean approximately the same thing they mean when they tell you to shut up. By shut up, they mean stop talking. By grow up, they mean stop growing.

“Because as long as you keep growing, you keep changing, and the person who is changing is unpredictable, impossible to pigeonhole and difficult to control. The growing person is not an easy target for those guys in slick suits who want you to turn over your soul to Christ, your heart to America, your butt to Seattle First National Bank and your armpits to the new extra crispy Right Guard.”

He went on to warn his young listeners never to be stupid enough to respect authority unless that authority proves itself respectable.

“So be your own authority, lead yourselves. Learn the ways and means of the ancient yogi masters, pied pipers, cloud walkers and medicine men. Get in harmony with nature. Listen to the loony rhythms of your blood. Look for beauty and poetry in everything in life. Let there be no moon that does not know you, no spring that does not lick you with its tongues. Refuse to play it safe, for it is from the wavering edge of risk that the sweetest honey of freedom drips and drips. Live dangerously, live lovingly. Believe in magic. Nourish your imagination. Use your head, even if it means going out of your mind. Learn, like the lemon and the tomato learned, the laws of the sun. Become aware, like the jungle became aware, of your own perfume. Remember that life is much too serious to take seriously – so never forget how to play. Looking at you tonight, I know you are going to do just fine.”

Throughout the years, Tom Robbins followed his own advice to keep the child alive, stay playful (to the point he earned the title of “Literary Prankster”) take risks and refuse to take things too seriously. And he did just fine.