Tricksters Quotes

• The trickster's function is to break taboos, create mischief, stir things up. In the end, the trickster gives people what they really want, some sort of freedom.

  Tom Robbins

  People, Giving, Want

  56 Copy quote

• The trickster, the riddler, the keeper of balance, he of the many faces who finds life in death and who fears no evil; he who walks through doors.

  Christopher Paolini

  Doors, Evil, Balance

  Christopher Paolini (2014). “The Inheritance Cycle Complete Collection: Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, Inheritance”, p.1661, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everything depends on whether we have for opponents those French tricksters or those daring rascals, the English. I prefer the English. Frequently their daring can only be described as stupidity. In their eyes it may be pluck and daring.

  Manfred von Richthofen

  Eye, Swag, Stupidity

  Manfred von Richthofen (2009). “The Red Baron”, p.128, BoD – Books on Demand

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there was a trick, there must be a trickster.

  Dorothy Richardson

  Tricks, Ifs

  Dorothy Miller Richardson (1979). “Pilgrimage”

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nature conceals her secrets because she is sublime, not because she is a trickster.

  Albert Einstein

  Nature, Sublime, Secret

  Letter to Oscar Veblen, 30 Apr. 1930

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Primitive societies, or social groupings, had shamans, and some of them even more recent in time. Shamans were tricksters. There was a tradition of the trickster, and the trickster was a clown, a humorous fellow. His task was to trick the gods, to humor the gods into laughing, so that there was access to the divine - because laughter is a moment when we are completely ourselves.

  George Carlin

  Laughter, Humorous, Laughing

  Source: mavericksofthemind.com

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.

  Napoleon Hill

  Inspirational, Delight, Tripping

  Napoleon Hill, Wyatt North (2014). “Think and Grow Rich”, p.23, Wyatt North Publishing, LLC

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• He was beautiful, that was always affirmed, but his beauty was hard to fix or to see, for he was always glimmering, flickering, melting, mixing, he was the shape of a shapeless flame, he was the eddying thread of needle-shapes in the shapeless mass of the waterfall. He was the invisible wind that hurried the clouds in billows and ribbons. You could see a bare tree on the skyline bent by the wind, holding up twisted branches and bent twigs, and suddenly its formless form would resolve itself into that of the trickster.

  A. S. Byatt

  Beautiful, Clouds, Flames

  A.S. Byatt (2011). “Ragnarok: the End of the Gods”, p.28, Canongate Books

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Men, Differences

  33 Copy quote

• This is a gathering of Lovers.
  In this gathering
  there is no high, no low,
  no smart, no ignorant,
  no special assembly,
  no grand discourse,
  no proper schooling required.
  There is no master,
  no disciple.
  This gathering is more like a drunken party,
  full of tricksters, fools,
  mad men and mad women.
  This is a gathering of Lovers.

  Rumi

  Life, Smart, Party

  "Hush Don't Say Anything to God". Book by Rumi, translated by Shahram Shiva, 1999.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The future is a trickster rabbit, full of surprises. Only the past is predictable. -Bobby Goodspeed

  James Howe

  Past, Rabbits, Surprise

  14 Copy quote

• Memory is a fascinating trickster. Words and images have enormous power and can easily displace actual experience over the years.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Memories, Years, Enormous

  Stephen Jay Gould (1991). “Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• All gods are tricksters, and war gods worst of any.

  Janet Morris

  War, Ontology, Worst

  Janet Morris (2011). “Tempus with His Right-Side Companion Niko”, p.229, Paradise Publishing

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• i am a trickster who doesn't know solitude

  Tite Kubo

  Solitude, Knows

  12 Copy quote

• The poor wretches have convinced themselves that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, by worshipping that crucified sophist and living under his laws...they receive these doctrines by tradition, without any definite evidence. So if any charlatan or trickster comes among them, he quickly acquires wealth by imposing upon these simple people.

  Lucian

  Simple, Law, People

  14 Copy quote

• The gods in Yoruba mythology are not remote at all. They're benign, they're malign, they are mischievous, like Eshu for instance, tricksters, rascally, fornicators, that's a similarity to Greek mythology, for instance, you know. They're not saints, they're not saints. They're powerful. It's why they're not tyrannical. Of course, a number of them are also very, you know, benevolent, you know, there are saintly virtues to be found in them.

  Wole Soyinka

  Powerful, Numbers, Greek

  Source: www.nobelprize.org

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I like the idea of it as a trickster motif. You know like you're kind of just messing around with people's memories of songs.

  DJ Spooky

  Song, Memories, Ideas

  Source: bigthink.com

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• And I think it's because good cons are all based on the victim's need, and the successful con artist is the one, I guess, who can exploit that. I remember reading something about this, that one of the great traits of confidence tricksters is the level that they flatter their victim.

  Alfred Molina

  Reading, Successful, Artist

  Interview With Sam Adams, film.avclub.com. October 29, 2009.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Memory is, of course, a trickster.

  Frances Mayes

  Memories, Courses

  4 Copy quote

• Trickster, love will be the end of you.

  Michael Buckley

  Ends

  6 Copy quote

• I must admit that I do have a particular soft spot for the character of the chameleon-trickster goddess Ris in Dreams of the Compass Rose. Ris has gone through the whole spectrum of personal change and has had the longest road of all. And in the end she chooses to come back to the world, to guide, and to help, and to open the eyes of those who are suffering. In that is her true strength and humorous wisdom. I really do like her a whole lot.

  Vera Nazarian

  Dream, Humorous, Character

  Source: fantasyworlds.wordpress.com

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The white man is going to keep you integration-minded Negroes cooped up here in America, and when you discover that the white man is a trickster, a devil, that he has no intentions of integrating, then you Negroes will run wild.

  Malcolm X

  Running, Men, White Man

  Source: teachingamericanhistory.org

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Rage was sometimes a useful ally in the heat of a fight, but it was a trickster. It made everything seem possible.

  Jonathan Maberry

  Fighting, Allies, Heat

  Jonathan Maberry (2012). “Dust & Decay”, p.399, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• To live
  On means not yours--be brave in silks and laces,
  Gallant in steeds; splendid in banquets; all
  Not yours. Given, uninherited, unpaid for;
  This is to be a trickster; and to filch
  Men's art and labour, which to them is wealth,
  Life, daily bread;--quitting all scores with "friend,
  You're troublesome!" Why this, forgive me,
  Is what, when done with a less dainty grace,
  Plain folks call "Theft.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Art, Mean, Men

  7 Copy quote

• ...but the tale itself is a trickster and doesn't hesitate to lie. It is anachronistic with a vengeance. It emerges always and everywhere, overt or disguised, pureblood or hybrid, and healthy as sin.

  Gregory Maguire

  Lying, Healthy, Vengeance

  6 Copy quote