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af7d326
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And 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.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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e4698c1
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I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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ded40bc
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Why me? - That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber? - Yes. - Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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c7de7d4
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Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn't it such a relief to have somebody say that?
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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f5d20a1
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Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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3c1687c
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I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did'.
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purpose-of-art
rock-n-roll
the-beatles
rock
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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8004bed
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Maturity...is knowing what your limitations are...Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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d0993fe
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The things other people have put into my head, at any rate, do not fit together nicely, are often useless and ugly, are out of proportion with one another, are out of proportion with life as it really is outside my head.
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thoughts
reality
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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b47c7b4
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How complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.
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cat-s
cradle
kurt
vonnegut
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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f803898
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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.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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3639916
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She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].
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religion
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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66676a7
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Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead.
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wisdom
thinking
humans
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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51fadb5
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Now lend me your ears. Here is Creative Writing 101: 1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. 2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. 3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. 4. Every sentence must do one of two things--reveal character or advance the action. 5. Start as close to the end as possible. 6. Be a sad..
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Kurt Vonnegut jr. |
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3e22862
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Americans . . . are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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1867ac6
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I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.
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misrepresentation
technology
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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93b417b
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Being an American means never having to say you're sorry.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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b17039b
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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.
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writing
semi-colons
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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d342b8e
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Any form of government, not just Capitalism, is whatever people who have all our money, drunk or sober, sane or insane, decide to do today.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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5e48426
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My god-life! who can understand eve one little minute of it? 'don't try' he said 'just pretend you understand.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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579ab7a
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And I apologize to all of you who are the same age as my grandchildren. And many of you reading this are the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.
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corporate-influence
democracy
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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65a3d86
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Its basic axiom is to be followed by individuals as well as great nations, by Losers and Winners alike. We have demonstrated the workability of the axiom in Vietnam, in Bangladesh, in Biafra, in Palestinian refugee camps, in our own ghettos, in our migrant labor camps, on our Indian reservations, in our institutions for the defective and the deformed and the aged. This is it: Ignore agony.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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fd7bb52
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It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment. Our American heirs may find it incredible, as most foreigners do right now, that a nation would want to enforce as a law something which sounds more like a dream, which reads as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit..
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literary-freedom
literature
writing
freedom-of-the-press
first-amendment
constitution
free-speech
writers
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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43854a2
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Here is how I propose to end book-banning in this country once and for all: Every candidate for school committee should be hooked up to a lie detector and asked this question: "Have you read a book from start to finish since high school?" or "Did you even read a book from start to finish in high school?" If the truthful answer is "no," then the candidate should be told politely that he cannot get on the school committee and blow off his big..
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book-banning
literature
books
united-states-of-america
first-amendment
freedom-of-speech
constitution
censorship
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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c6f7c43
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All's bad that ends badly, and it's only the sick-minded who can feed on the past.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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2dde8f8
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I didn't really steal it. I just borrowed it for all eternity
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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a250025
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You want to know why I don't have AIDS, why I'm not HIV-positive like so many other people? I don't fuck around. It's as simple as that. Trout
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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e47943b
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My wife thinks I think I'm such hot stuff. She's wrong. I don't think I'm such hot stuff.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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1288dd3
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No names have been changed in order to protect the innocent since God Almighty protects the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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e9ee470
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We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodely do, What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must; Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,muddily do, Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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1d43dcf
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This is not the case. I find scant evidence in my nonfiction that I have matured at all. I cannot find a single idea I hadn't swiped from somebody else and enunciated plonkingly by the time I reached the seventh grade.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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1488ef6
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The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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eff3010
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In [ , Mark Twain] proves to his own grim satisfaction, and to mine as well, that Satan and not God created the planet earth and "the damned human race." If you doubt that, read your morning paper. Never mind what paper. Never mind what date."
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human-race
newspapers
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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afde258
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World War Two had certainly made everyone very tough.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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cd0fec6
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Life is divided up into phases," he said. "Each one is very different from the others, and you have to be able to recognize what is expected of you in each phase. That's the secret of successful living."
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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62f780c
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Campbell was an ordinary-looking man, but he was extravagantly costumed in a uniform of his own design. He wore a white ten-gallon hat and black cowboy boots decorated with swastikas and stars. He was sheathed in a blue body stocking which had yellow stripes running from his armpits to his ankles. His shoulder patch was a silhouette of Abraham Lincoln's profile on a field of pale green. He had a broad armband which was red, with a blue swas..
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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2c21777
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Him! Him! Captain Eliot Rosewater-Silver Star, Bronze Star, Soldier's Medal, and Purple Heart with Cluster! Sailing champion! Ski champion! Him! Him! My God-the number of times life has said, 'Yes, yes, yes,' to him! Millions of dollars, hundreds of significant friends, the most beautiful, intelligent, talented, affectionate wife imaginable! A splendid education, an elegant mind in a big, clean body-and what was his reply when life says not..
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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85589a6
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I've brought scientific thinking to literature. There's been very little gratitude for this.
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science
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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3455529
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All people are insane," he said. "They will do anything at any time, and God help anybody who looks for reasons."
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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85866f8
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He told me off camera that he was despised by his neighbors for remembering when it was time to forget.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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036dbe1
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There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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9df4eb8
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Era gente spregevole, quella di Sodoma e Gomorra, come tutti sanno. Il mondo stava meglio senza di loro. E alla moglie di Lot, naturalmente, fu detto di non voltarsi indietro a guardare il luogo dove prima c'era tutta quella gente con le sue case. Lei invece si volto, e per questo io le voglio bene: perche fu un gesto profondamente umano. Cosi fu trasformata in un pilastro di sale. Cosi va la vita. La gente non dovrebbe mai voltarsi indietr..
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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e6ac36f
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As Bokonon says: "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." The"
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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5f626e4
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America," wrote Kilgore Trout in MTYOAP: "is the interplay of three hundred million Rube Goldberg contraptions invented only yesterday."
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
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8adccb7
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Then you'll do it brilliantly, darling. You'll get to Pittsburgh yet.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |