200+ Quotes & Sayings By Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a renowned author, playwright, and a member of the famous Vonnegut family of writers. He wrote four novels and eight short stories, some of which were adapted into movie scripts. He died in 2007 from a heart attack at the age of 84.

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling...
1
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
2
America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand — glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves. . Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
3
Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please – a little less love, and a little more common decency'. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
If somebody says 'I love you' to me, I feel...
4
If somebody says 'I love you' to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol holder requires? 'I love you, too'. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
5
And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never...
6
Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must...
7
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be...
8
If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: T H E ONLY PROOF HE NEEDEDFOR THE EXISTENCE OF GODWAS MUSIC Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full...
9
How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got...
10
Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
One of the few good things about modern times: If...
11
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. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
12
Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty...
13
The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living....
14
Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well? Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat...
15
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana)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. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
You'll forget it when you're dead, and so will I....
16
You'll forget it when you're dead, and so will I. When I'm dead, I'm going to forget everything—and I advise you to do the same. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
17
People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were only ugly things to do. They didn't own doodley-squat, so they couldn't improve their surroundings. so they did their best to make their insides beautiful instead. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
18
Do you realize that all great literature – "Moby Dick, " "Huckleberry Finn, " "A Farewell to Arms, " "The Scarlet Letter, " "The Red Badge of Courage, " "The Iliad and The Odyssey, " "Crime and Punishment, " the Bible, and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" – are all about what a bummer it is to be a. ..human being? Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would...
19
The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody. Thank you for using me, even though I didn't want to be used by anybody. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
20
Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
21
The letter said that they were two feet high, and green, and shaped like plumber's friends. Their suction cups were on the ground, and their shafts, which were extremely flexible, usually pointed to the sky. At the top of each shaft was a little hand with a green eye in its palm. The creatures were friendly, and they could see in four dimensions. They pitied Earthlings for being able to see only three. They had many wonderful things to teach Earthlings, especially about time. Billy promised to tell what some of those wonderful things were in his next letter. Billy was working on his second letter when the first letter was published. The second letter started out like this: 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 a bad condition in that 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. . Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
22
He was talking about the sign that said 'THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE.''All knew was that I didn't want my daughter or anybody's child to see a message that negative every time she comes into the library, ' he said. 'And then I found out it was you who was responsible for it.'' What's so negative about it?' I said.' What could be a more negative word than "futility"?' he said.'" Ignorance, "' I said. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive...
23
The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion....
24
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning do to do afterward. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
To be is to do - SocratesTo do is to...
25
To be is to do - SocratesTo do is to be - SartreDo Be Do Be Do - Sinatra Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
26
1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.
27
The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists,...
28
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
29
Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding. For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding. 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. If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
30
No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's .. ." "And?" "No damn cat, and no damn cradle. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
31
Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so. By the same token, though, I suppose that boulders and mountains and moons could be accused of being a little too phlegmatic. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're...
32
If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.
33
All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
34
Well finish your story anyway." Where was I?"The bubonic plague. The bulldozer was stalled by corpses." Oh, yes. Anyway, one sleepless night I stayed up with Father while he worked. It was all we could do to find a live patient to treat. In bed after bed after bed we found dead people. And Father started giggling, " Castle continued. He couldn't stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?" asked Castle.Nope."'Son, ' my father said to me, 'someday this will all be yours. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
35
Anyway–because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next–and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis–at any time of night or day. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
36
There's only one rule that I know of, babies– God damn it, you've got to be kind. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I speak gibberish to the civilized world and it replies...
37
I speak gibberish to the civilized world and it replies in kind. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
38
Usually when people talk about the trickle-down theory, it has to do with economics. The richer people at the top of a society become, supposedly, the more wealth there is to trickle down to the people below. It never really works out that way, of course, because if there are 2 things people at the top can't stand, they have to be leakage and overflow. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes.
39
Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Nothing is generous. New knowledge is a valuable commodity. The...
40
Nothing is generous. New knowledge is a valuable commodity. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we are. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what...
41
The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy, by and large. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
42
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too. And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
43
But people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awful truth. As the living legend of the cruel tyrant in the city and the gentle holy man in the jungle grew, so, too, did the happiness of the people grow. They were all employed full time as actors in a play they understood, that any human being anywhere could understand and applaud. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
She was a fool, and so am I, and so...
44
She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon]. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God....
45
Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
46
It appeared to the Elders that the people here would believe anything about themselves, no matter how preposterous, as long as it was flattering. To make sure of this, they performed an experiment. They put the idea into Earthlings' heads that the whole Universe had been created by one big animal who looked just like them. He sat on a throne with a lot of less fancy thrones all around him. When people died they got to sit on those other thrones forever because they were such close relatives of the Creator.The people down here just ate that up! . Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been...
47
Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can...
48
I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
49
Perhaps some people really are born unhappy. I surely hope not. Speaking for my sister and myself: We were born with the capacity and determination to be utterly happy all the time. Perhaps even in this we were freaks. Hi ho. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
50
The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?" It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period. This is it: "Nothing. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
51
As for myself: I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing sacred about myself or any human being, that we were all machines, doomed to collide and collide and collide. For want of anything better to do, we became fans of collisions. Sometimes I wrote well about collisions, which meant I was a writing machine in good repair. Sometimes I wrote badly, which meant I was a writing machine in bad repair. I no more harbored sacredness than did a Pontiac, a mousetrap, or a South Bend Lathe. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
52
The most important thing I learnt 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 the 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 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 any Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. . Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
53
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. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to...
54
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. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I say the same thing about the death of James...
55
I say the same thing about the death of James Wait. "Oh, well -- he wasn't going to write the Beethoven's Ninth Symphony anyway. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
56
The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies heonly appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people tocry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always willexist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we canlook at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent allthe moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just anillusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on astring, 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 a badcondition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of othermoments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say whatthe Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "so it goes. . Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
57
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. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
58
I wanted all things To seem to make some sense, So we could all be happy, yes, Instead of tense. And I made up lies So that they all fit nice, And I made this sad world A par-a-dise. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing...
59
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
60
If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do...
61
Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and...
62
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? Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man...
63
When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
64
As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
65
I felt after I finished Slaughterhouse-Five that I didn’t have to write at all anymore if I didn’t want to. It was the end of some sort of career. I don’t know why, exactly. I suppose that flowers, when they’re through blooming, have some sort of awareness of some purpose having been served. Flowers didn’t ask to be flowers and I didn’t ask to be me. At the end of Slaughterhouse-Five…I had a shutting-off feeling…that I had done what I was supposed to do and everything was OK. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.
66
Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
My advice to writers just starting out? Don't use semi-colons!...
67
My advice to writers just starting out? Don't use semi-colons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Write to please just one person. If you open a...
68
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
69
The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be the same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one: E T C. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again....
70
Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
71
I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness...
72
Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
73
Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
74
I'm simply interested in what is going to happen next. I don't think I can control my life or my writing. Every other writer I know feels he is steering himself, and I don't have that feeling. I don't have that sort of control. I'm simply becoming. I'm startled that I became a writer. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your...
75
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of."[ From the preface.] Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
76
I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
77
I am simply impressed by the unexpected insights which shower down on me when my job is to imagine, as contrasted with the woodenly familiar ideas which clutter my desk when my job is to tell the truth. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
If you can't write clearly, you probably don't think nearly...
78
If you can't write clearly, you probably don't think nearly as well as you think you do. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
79
I think I succeeded as a writer because I did not come out of an English department. I used to write in the chemistry department. And I wrote some good stuff. If I had been in the English department, the prof would have looked at my short stories, congratulated me on my talent, and then showed me how Joyce or Hemingway handled the same elements of the short story. The prof would have placed me in competition with the greatest writers of all time, and that would have ended my writing career. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
80
Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, I said,...
81
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. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said,...
82
When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said, "You think your dad's a good chemist? They're turning soda crackers into meat in there. Can your dad do that? Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
83
Oh Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagnetic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Volumes of Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia – what could we do for Thee that Thou couldst not do for Thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest Thee? Nothing. Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our Creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say, 'Somebody up there likes me.' And no longer can a tyrant say, 'God wants this or that to happen, and anyone who doesn't help this or that to happen is against God.' O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain! " -The prayer of the Reverend C. Horner Redwine . Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something,...
84
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The...
85
New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
86
The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
87
All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States -- and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death! Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
88
I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how tobecome a professional writer. I say to you, "If you really want to hurt yourparents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you cando is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestitehermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you'vebeen to college. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
89
I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for awhile after the Second World War. I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody. They may be teaching that still. Another thing they taught was that no one was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, ‘You know — you never wrote a story with a villain in it.’ I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war. . Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
90
As Mary delivered what was to be her last lecture about the Galapagos Islands, she would be stopped mid-sentence for five seconds by a doubt which, if expressed in words, might have come out something like this: "Maybe I'm just a crazy lady who had wandered off the street and into this classroom and started explaining the mysteries of life to these people. And they believe me, although I am utterly mistaken about simply everything." She had to wonder, too, about all the supposedly great teachers of the past, who, although their brains were healthy, had turned out to be as wrong as Roy about what was really going on. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
91
So what indeed! The lesson I myself learned over and over again when teaching at the college and then the prison was the uselessness of information to most people, except as entertainment. If facts weren't funny or scary, or couldn't make you rich, the heck with them. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Whenever I ask a question, and the pain comes, I...
92
Whenever I ask a question, and the pain comes, I know I have asked a really good question. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment....
93
Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
94
There are no telegraphs on Tralfamadore. But you're right: each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message-- describing a situation, a scene. We Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other. There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
95
The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks, and not only the electronic clocks but the wind-up kind too. The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again. There was nothing I could do about it. As an Earthling I had to believe whatever clocks said -and calendars. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because...
96
Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because the moment simply is. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
97
The guide invited the crowd to imagine that they were looking across a desert at a mountain range on a day that was twinkling bright and clear. They could look at a peak or a bird or cloud, at a stone right in front of them, or even down into a canyon behind them. But among them was this poor Earthling, and his head was encased in a steel sphere which he could never take off. There was only one eyehole through which he could look, and welded to that eyehole were six feet of pipe." This was only the beginning of Billy's miseries in the metaphor. He was also strapped to a steel lattice which was bolted to a flatcar on rails, and there was no way he could turn his head or touch the pipe. The far end of the pipe rested on a bi-pod which was also bolted to the flatcar. All Billy could see was the little dot at the end of the pipe. He didn't know he was on a flatcar, didn't even know there was anything peculiar about his situation. "The flatcar sometimes crept, sometimes went extremely fast, often stopped--went uphill, downhill, around curves, along straightaways. Whatever poor Billy saw through the pipe, he had no choice but to say to himself, 'That's life. . Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
98
Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live rationally and if they would contribute mutually to each others' welfare. This world is not a vale of sorrows if you will recognize discriminatingly what is truly excellent in it; and if you will avail yourself of it for mutual happiness and well-being. Therefore, let us explain as often as possible, and particularly at the departure of life, that we base our faith on firm foundations, on Truth for putting into action our ideas which do not depend on fables and ideas which Science has long ago proven to be false. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
99
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 colour 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. . Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
100
And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.