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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

• The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.
  When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is “So it goes.” - View Quote Details on The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that…
• My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps right on doing bad, dumb things.” - View Quote Details on My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and…
• The new heroism — put a village idiot into a pressure cooker, seal it up tight, and shoot him at the moon. - View Quote Details on The new heroism — put a village idiot into a…
• Take Care of the People, and God Almighty Will Take Care of Himself. - View Quote Details on Take Care of the People, and God Almighty Will Take…
• There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done. - View Quote Details on There is no order in the world around us, we…
• Eliza and I composed a precocious critique of the Constitution of the United States of America… We argued that is was as good a scheme for misery as any, since its success in keeping the common people reasonably happy and proud depended on the strength of the people themselves — and yet it prescribed no practical machinery which would tend to make the people, as opposed to their elected representatives, strong.
  We said it was possible that the framers of the Constitution were blind to the beauty of persons who were without great wealth or powerful friends or public office, but who were nonetheless genuinely strong.
  We thought it was more likely, though, that their framers had not noticed that it was natural, and therefore almost inevitable, that human beings in extraordinary and enduring situations should think of themselves of composing new families. Eliza and I pointed out that this happened no less in democracies than in tyrannies, since human beings were the same the wide world over, and civilized only yesterday.
  Elected representatives, hence, could be expected to become members of the famous and powerful family of elected representatives — which would, perfectly naturally, make them wary and squeamish and stingy with respect to all the other sorts of families which, again, perfectly naturally, subdivided mankind.
  Elize and I… proposed that the Constitution be amended so as to guarantee that every citizen, no matter how humble, or crazy or incompetent or deformed, somehow be given membership in some family as covertly xenophobic and crafty as the one their public servants formed. - View Quote Details on Eliza and I composed a precocious critique of the Constitution…
• The big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart. - View Quote Details on The big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are…
• Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. Why don’t you take a flying fuck at the moooooooooon! - View Quote Details on Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling…
• We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. I used to think that science would save us, and science certainly tried. But we can’t stand any more tremendous explosions, either for or against democracy. - View Quote Details on We would be a lot safer if the Government would…
• Time is liquid. One moment is no more important than any other and all moments quickly run away. - View Quote Details on Time is liquid. One moment is no more important than…
• If I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in heaven now.” That’s my favorite joke. - View Quote Details on If I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you…
• This is my principal objection to life, I think: It is too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes. - View Quote Details on This is my principal objection to life, I think: It…
• My last words? “Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse.” - View Quote Details on My last words? “Life is no way to treat an…
• Congressman Nixon had asked me why, as the son of immigrants who had been treated so well by Americans, as a man who had been treated like a son and been sent to Harvard by an American capitalist, I had been so ungrateful to the American economic system.
  The answer I gave him was not original. Nothing about me has ever been original. I repeated what my one-time hero, Kenneth Whistler, had said in reply to the same general sort of question long, long ago. Whistler had been a witness at a trial of strikers accused of violence. The judge had become curious about him, had asked him why such a well-educated man from such a good family would so immerse himself in the working class.
  My stolen answer to Nixon was this: “Why? The Sermon on the Mount, sir.” - View Quote Details on Congressman Nixon had asked me why, as the son of…
• We are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different. - View Quote Details on We are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let…
• Everybody’s shaking in his boots, so don’t be bluffed. - View Quote Details on Everybody’s shaking in his boots, so don’t be bluffed.
• About astrology and palmistry: They are good because they make people feel vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm. - View Quote Details on About astrology and palmistry: They are good because they make…
• We’re having a celebration, so all sorts of things have been said which are not true,” I said. “That’s how to act at a party. - View Quote Details on We’re having a celebration, so all sorts of things have…
• You think I’m insane?” said Finnerty. Apparently he wanted more of a reaction than Paul had given him.
  “You’re still in touch. I guess that’s the test.”
  “Barely — barely.”
  “A psychiatrist could help. There’s a good man in Albany.”
  Finnerty shook his head. “He’d pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” He nodded, “Big, undreamed-of things — the people on the edge see them first. - View Quote Details on You think I’m insane?” said Finnerty. Apparently he wanted more…
• George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography. - View Quote Details on George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who…
• [Vietnam] only made billionaires out of millionaires. [Iraq] is making trillionaires out of billionaires. Now I call that progress. - View Quote Details on [Vietnam] only made billionaires out of millionaires. [Iraq] is making…
• Well, I’ve worried some about, you know, why write books… why are we teaching people to write books when presidents and senators do not read them, and generals do not read them. And it’s been the university experience that taught me that there is a very good reason, that you catch people before they become generals and presidents and so forth and you poison their minds with… humanity, and however you want to poison their minds, it’s presumably to encourage them to make a better world. - View Quote Details on Well, I’ve worried some about, you know, why write books…
• Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas. - View Quote Details on Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power…
• Here lies Howard Campbell’s essence,
  Freed from his body’s noisome nuisance.
  His body, empty, prowls the earth,
  Earning what a body’s worth.
  If his body and his essence remain apart,
  Burn his body, but spare this, his heart. - View Quote Details on Here lies Howard Campbell’s essence,
  Freed from his body’s noisome nuisance.
  His…
• There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. - View Quote Details on There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and…
• Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God. - View Quote Details on Puny man can do nothing at all to help or…
• Hello, I am Wanda June. Today was going to be my birthday, but I was hit by an ice-cream truck before I could have my party. I am dead now. I am in Heaven. That is why my parents did not pick up my cake at the bakery. I am not mad at the ice-cream truck driver, even though he was drunk when he hit me. It didn’t hurt much. It wasn’t even as bad as the sting of a bumblebee. I am really happy here! It’s so much fun. I’m glad the driver was drunk. If he hadn’t been, I might not have gone to Heaven for years and years and years. I would have had to go to high school first, and then beauty college. I would have had to get married and have babies and everything. Now I can just play and play and play. Any time I want any pink cotton candy I can have some. Everybody up here is happy — the animals and the dead soldiers and people who went to the electric chair and everything. They’re all glad for whatever sent them here. Nobody is mad. We’re all too busy playing shuffleboard. So if you think of killing somebody, don’t worry about it. Just go ahead and do it. Whoever you do it to should kiss you for doing it. The soldiers up here just love the shrapnel and the tanks and the bayonets and the dum dums that let them play shuffleboard all the time — and drink beer. - View Quote Details on Hello, I am Wanda June. Today was going to be…
• I’ve often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they’re on, why they don’t fall off it, how much time they’ve probably got here, how to avoid poison ivy, and so on. I tried to write one once. It was called Welcome to Earth. But I got stuck on explaining why we don’t fall off the planet. Gravity is just a word. It doesn’t explain anything. If I could get past gravity, I’d tell them how we reproduce, how long we’ve been here, apparently, and a little bit about evolution. I didn’t learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn’t a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It’s also a source of hope. It means we don’t have to continue this way if we don’t like it. - View Quote Details on I’ve often thought there ought to be a manual to…
• Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile. - View Quote Details on Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning…
• It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can’t get out of, but I think this is very usual in life. There are people, particularly dumb people, who are in terrible trouble and never get out of it, because they’re not intelligent enough. It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems. This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry — or laugh. - View Quote Details on It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone…
• I wish I had been born a bird instead,” he said.
  “I wish we had all been born birds instead. - View Quote Details on I wish I had been born a bird instead,” he…
• We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. - View Quote Details on We are what we pretend to be, so we must…
• Belief is nearly the whole of the Universe, whether based on truth or not. - View Quote Details on Belief is nearly the whole of the Universe, whether based…
• All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - View Quote Details on All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.
• Billy coughed when the door was opened, and when he coughed he shit thin gruel. This was in accordance with the Third Law of Motion according to Sir Isaac Newton. This law tells us that for each reaction there is a reaction which is equal and opposite in direction. This can be useful in rocketry. - View Quote Details on Billy coughed when the door was opened, and when he…
• Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information. - View Quote Details on Life happens too fast for you ever to think about…
• Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules — and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress. - View Quote Details on Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles…
• Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the Universe. - View Quote Details on Just because some of us can read and write and…
• During my most recently controlled near-death experience, I got to interview William Shakespeare. We did not hit it off. He said the dialect I spoke was the ugliest English he had ever heard, “fit to split the ears of groundlings.” He asked if it had a name, and I said “Indianapolis.” - View Quote Details on During my most recently controlled near-death experience, I got to…
• If God were alive today, he would have to be an atheist, because the excrement has hit the air-conditioning big time, big time. - View Quote Details on If God were alive today, he would have to be…
• He was a graduate of West Point, a military academy which turned young men into homicidal maniacs for use in war. - View Quote Details on He was a graduate of West Point, a military academy…
• And so on. - View Quote Details on And so on.
• It was Trout’s fantasy that somebody would be outraged by the footprints. This would give him the opportunity to reply grandly, “What is it that offends you so? I am simply using man’s first printing press. You are reading a bold and universal headline which says,’I am here, I am here, I am here.’ - View Quote Details on It was Trout’s fantasy that somebody would be outraged by…
• Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. - View Quote Details on Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know…
• While we were being bombed in Dresden, sitting in a cellar with our arms over our heads in case the ceiling fell, one slider said as though he were a duchess in a mansion on a cold and rainy night, “I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight.” Nobody laughed, but we were still all glad he said it. - View Quote Details on While we were being bombed in Dresden, sitting in a…
• Humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be. - View Quote Details on Humor is a way of holding off how awful life…
• I hadn’t aimed at anything. If I had thought of the bullet’s hitting anything, I don’t remember now. I was the great marksman, anyway. If I aimed at nothing, then nothing is what I would hit. The bullet was a symbol, and nobody was ever hurt by a symbol. It was a farewell to my childhood and a confirmation of my manhood. Why didn’t I use a blank cartridge? What kind of a symbol would that have been? - View Quote Details on I hadn’t aimed at anything. If I had thought of…
• I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex. - View Quote Details on I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life…
• I think yet again of my father, who struggled to become a painter after he was forced into early and unwelcome retirement by the Great Depression. He has reason to be optimistic about his new career, since the early stages of his pictures, whether still or portraits or landscapes, were full of pow. Mother, meaning to be helpful, would say of each one: “That’s really wonderful, Kurt. Now all you have to do is finish it.” He would then ruin it. I remember a portrait he did of his only brother, Alex, who was an insurance salesman, which he called “Special Agent”. When he roughed it in, his hand and eye conspired with a few bold strokes to capture several important truths about Alex, including a hint of disappointment. Uncle Alex was a proud graduate of Harvard, who would rather have been a scholar of literature than an insurance man.
  When Father finished the portrait, made sure every square inch of masonite had its share of paint, Uncle Alex had disappeared entirely. We had a drunk and lustful Queen Victoria instead. This was terrible. - View Quote Details on I think yet again of my father, who struggled to…
• We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I’m kidding. - View Quote Details on We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave…
• I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it’s a very poor scheme for survival. - View Quote Details on I was taught that the human brain was the crowning…
• I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a color photograph of God Almighty — and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine.
  Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima. - View Quote Details on I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how…
• Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand - View Quote Details on Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
• He ransacked his memory like a thief going through another man’s billfold. - View Quote Details on He ransacked his memory like a thief going through another…
• Make love when you can. It’s good for you. - View Quote Details on Make love when you can. It’s good for you.
• Here was what Kilgore Trout cried out to me in my father’s voice: “Make me young, make me young, make me young!” - View Quote Details on Here was what Kilgore Trout cried out to me in…
• Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease. - View Quote Details on Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease.
• I sometimes wondered what the use of any of the arts was. The best thing I could come up with was what I call the canary in the coal mine theory of the arts. This theory says that artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are super-sensitive. They keel over like canaries in poison coal mines long before more robust types realize that there is any danger whatsoever. - View Quote Details on I sometimes wondered what the use of any of the…
• Drawn crudely in the dust of three window-panes were a swastika, a hammer and sickle, and the Stars and Stripes. I had drawn the three symbols weeks before, at the conclusion of an argument about patriotism with Kraft. I had given a hearty cheer for each symbol, demonstrating to Kraft the meaning of patriotism to, respectively, a Nazi, a Communist, and an American. “Hooray, hooray, hooray,” I’d said. - View Quote Details on Drawn crudely in the dust of three window-panes were a…
• I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War. - View Quote Details on I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to…
• I couldn’t survive my own pessimism if I didn’t have some kind of sunny little dream…. Human beings will be happier — not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie — but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia. That’s what I want for me. - View Quote Details on I couldn’t survive my own pessimism if I didn’t have…
• Listen:
  The waitress brought me another drink. She wanted to light my hurricane lamp again. I wouldn’t let her. “Can you see anything in the dark, with your sunglasses on?” she asked me.
  “The big show is inside my head,” I said - View Quote Details on Listen:
  The waitress brought me another drink. She wanted to light…
• True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. - View Quote Details on True terror is to wake up one morning and discover…
• I don’t think there would be many jokes, if there weren’t constant frustration and fear and so forth. It’s a response to bad troubles like crime. - View Quote Details on I don’t think there would be many jokes, if there…
• You realize, of course, that everything I say is horseshit. - View Quote Details on You realize, of course, that everything I say is horseshit.
• Generally speaking, espionage offers each spy an opportunity to go crazy in a way he finds irresistible. - View Quote Details on Generally speaking, espionage offers each spy an opportunity to go…
• What is flirtatiousness but an argument that life must go on and on and on? - View Quote Details on What is flirtatiousness but an argument that life must go…
• I never knew a writer’s wife who wasn’t beautiful. - View Quote Details on I never knew a writer’s wife who wasn’t beautiful.
• Strange business,” said Lasher. “This crusading spirit of the managers and engineers, the idea of designing and manufacturing and distributing being sort of a holy war: all that folklore was cooked up by public relations and advertising men hired by managers and engineers to make big business popular in the old days, which it certainly wasn’t in the beginning. Now, the engineers and managers believe with all their hearts the glorious things their forebears hired people to say about them. Yesterday’s snow job becomes today’s sermon. - View Quote Details on Strange business,” said Lasher. “This crusading spirit of the managers…
• During my controlled near-death experiences, I’ve met Sir Isaac Newton, who died back in 1727 as often as I’ve met Saint Peter. They both hang out at the Heaven end of the blue tunnel of the Afterlife. Saint Peter is there because it’s his job. Sir Isaac is there because of his insatiable curiosity about what the blue tunnel is, how the blue tunnel works.
  It isn’t enough for Newton that during his eighty-five years on Earth he invented calculus, codified and quantified the laws of gravity, motion and optics, and designed the first reflecting telescope. He can’t forgive himself for having left it to Darwin to come up with the theory of evolution, to Pasteur to come up with the germ theory, and to Albert Einstein to come up with relativity. “I must have been deaf, dumb, and blind not to have come up with those myself,” he said to me. “What could have been more obvious?” - View Quote Details on During my controlled near-death experiences, I’ve met Sir Isaac Newton,…
• The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead. - View Quote Details on The two real political parties in America are the Winners…
• Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on. - View Quote Details on Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all…
• Timequake - View Quote Details on Timequake
• In order to get what we’ve got, Anita, we have, in effect, traded these people out of what was the most important thing on earth to them — the feeling of being needed and useful, the foundation of self-respect. - View Quote Details on In order to get what we’ve got, Anita, we have,…
• Where is home? I’ve wondered where home is, and I realized, it’s not Mars or someplace like that, it’s Indianapolis when I was nine years old. I had a brother and a sister, a cat and a dog, and a mother and a father and uncles and aunts. And there’s no way I can get there again. - View Quote Details on Where is home? I’ve wondered where home is, and I…
• If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal. If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative. What could be simpler? - View Quote Details on If you want to take my guns away from me,…
• What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish that people wouldn’t get so mad at them. - View Quote Details on What do men want? They want a lot of pals,…
• There are plenty of good reasons for fighting,” I said, “but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where’s evil? It’s that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. - View Quote Details on There are plenty of good reasons for fighting,” I said,…
• It is almost always a mistake to mention Abraham Lincoln. He always steals the show. - View Quote Details on It is almost always a mistake to mention Abraham Lincoln…
• I was on par with the Creator of the Universe there in the dark in the cocktail lounge. I shrunk the Universe to a ball exactly one light-year in diameter. I had it explode. I had it disperse itself again.
  Ask me a question, any question. How old is the Universe? It is one half-second old, but the half-second has lasted one quintillion years so far. Who created it? Nobody created it. It has always been here.
  What is time? It is a serpent which eats its tail, like this:
  This is the snake which uncoiled itself long enough to offer Eve the apple, which looked like this:
  What was the apple which Eve and Adam ate? It was the Creator of the Universe.
  And so on.
  Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes. - View Quote Details on I was on par with the Creator of the Universe…
• It is a gruesome Disneyland. Nobody is cute there. - View Quote Details on It is a gruesome Disneyland. Nobody is cute there.
• No grown woman is a fan of premature ejaculation. - View Quote Details on No grown woman is a fan of premature ejaculation.
• We’re not too young for love, just too young for about everything there is that goes with love. - View Quote Details on We’re not too young for love, just too young for…
• Is it possible that seemingly incredible geniuses like Bach and Shakespeare and Einstein were not in fact superhuman, but simply plagiarists, copying great stuff from the future? - View Quote Details on Is it possible that seemingly incredible geniuses like Bach and…
• All through the day I’m so confident. That’s why I’m such a good salesman, you know? I have confidence, and I look like I have confidence, and that gives other people confidence. - View Quote Details on All through the day I’m so confident. That’s why I’m…
• I can’t help it,” I said. “My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps right on doing bad, dumb things.”
  “You and your what?” he said.
  “My soul and my meat,” I said.
  “They’re separate?” he said.
  “I sure hope they are,” I said. I laughed. “I would hate to be responsible for what my meat does. - View Quote Details on I can’t help it,” I said. “My soul knows my…
• We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane. - View Quote Details on We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas…
• I know that millions of dollars have been spent to produce this splendid graduating class, and that the main hope of your teachers was, once they got through with you, that you would no longer be superstitious. I’m sorry — I have to undo that now. I beg you to believe in the most ridiculous superstition of all: that humanity is at the center of the universe, the fulfiller or the frustrator of the grandest dreams of God Almighty.
  If you can believe that, and make others believe it, then there might be hope for us. Human beings might stop treating each other like garbage, might begin to treasure and protect each other instead. Then it might be all right to have babies again. - View Quote Details on I know that millions of dollars have been spent to…
• One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us. - View Quote Details on One of the few good things about modern times: If…
• If you can do no good, at least do no harm. - View Quote Details on If you can do no good, at least do no…
• The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide. - View Quote Details on The public health authorities never mention the main reason many…
• The practice of art isn’t to make a living. It’s to make your soul grow. - View Quote Details on The practice of art isn’t to make a living. It’s…
• That was the strength of the Nazis,” she said. “They understood God better than anyone. They knew how to make him stay away. - View Quote Details on That was the strength of the Nazis,” she said. “They…
• Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say? - View Quote Details on Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and…
• I’ve got news for Mr. Santayana: we’re doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That’s what it is to be alive. - View Quote Details on I’ve got news for Mr. Santayana: we’re doomed to repeat…
• About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.
  I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I’m dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves “Freethinkers,” which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, “If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?”
  I myself have written, “If it weren’t for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn’t want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake.” - View Quote Details on About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some…
• Socialism is no more an evil word than Christianity. Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve. - View Quote Details on Socialism is no more an evil word than Christianity. Socialism…
• [Gay Talese's Thy Neighbor's Wife] is for me a secretly deep history of a generation of middle-class American males, my own, which was taught by parents and athletic coaches and scoutmasters and military chaplains and quack doctors and so on to be deeply ashamed of masturbation and wet dreams.
  And the hidden plea in the book is one which first appeared in my eyes when I was fourteen, say, and which has not vanished entirely to this day. It is part of the mystery of me. The plea is addressed by old-fashioned males forever full of jism to any pretty human female, on the street, in a magazine, in a movie — anywhere. The plea is this: “Please, pretty lady, don’t make me play with my private parts again.” - View Quote Details on [Gay Talese's Thy Neighbor's Wife] is for me a secretly…
• Like all real heroes, Charley had a fatal flaw. He refused to believe that he had gonorrhea, whereas the truth was that he did. - View Quote Details on Like all real heroes, Charley had a fatal flaw. He…
• I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” - View Quote Details on I urge you to please notice when you are happy,…
• Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. - View Quote Details on Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.
• Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas! - View Quote Details on Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas!
• I can have oodles of charm when I want to. - View Quote Details on I can have oodles of charm when I want to.
• Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery. - View Quote Details on Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred…
• People hate it when they’re tickled because laughter is not pleasant, if it goes on too long. I think it’s a desperate sort of convulsion in desperate circumstances, which helps a little. - View Quote Details on People hate it when they’re tickled because laughter is not…
• Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” - View Quote Details on Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer…
• Things die. All things die. - View Quote Details on Things die. All things die.
• They’re playin our song Gene! - View Quote Details on They’re playin our song Gene!
• 1. Find a subject you care about.
  2. Do not ramble, though.
  3. Keep it simple.
  4. Have the guts to cut.
  5. Sound like yourself.
  6. Say what you mean to say.
  7. Pity the readers. - View Quote Details on 1. Find a subject you care about.
  2. Do not ramble,…
• When I was a naive young recruit in Spain, I used to wonder why soldiers bayoneted oil paintings, shot the noses off statues and defecated into grand pianos. I now understand: it was to teach civilians the deepest sort of respect for men in uniform — uncontrollable fear. - View Quote Details on When I was a naive young recruit in Spain, I…
• A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees. - View Quote Details on A sum of money is a leading character in this…
• For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
  “Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break! - View Quote Details on For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never…
• Roses are red
  And ready for plucking
  You’re sixteen
  And ready for high school. - View Quote Details on Roses are red
  And ready for plucking
  You’re sixteen
  And ready for high…
• What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured. - View Quote Details on What should young people do with their lives today? Many…
• During the Vietnam War, Abbie Hoffman announced that the new high was banana peels taken rectally. So then FBI scientists stuffed banana peels up their asses to find out if this was true or not. - View Quote Details on During the Vietnam War, Abbie Hoffman announced that the new…
• I think William Shakespeare was the wisest human being I ever heard of. To be perfectly frank, though, that’s not saying much. We are impossibly conceited animals, and actually dumb as heck. Ask any teacher. You don’t even have to ask a teacher. Ask anybody. Dogs and cats are smarter than we are. - View Quote Details on I think William Shakespeare was the wisest human being I…

About Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-11-11 - 2007-04-11 ) was an American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction. See also: Cat’s Cradle Slaughterhouse-Five Timequake .

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