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0b1a3b7
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That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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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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40110e9
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I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer." "What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman?"
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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e96c18e
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There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.
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cat-s
cradle
kurt
vonnegut
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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ab12b03
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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 w..
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writing
books
bloom
finished
slaughterhouse-five
book
complete
flowers
awareness
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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3f8b51d
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We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.
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humanity
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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24fb515
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Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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afaf12f
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You can't just eat good food. You've got to talk about it too. And you've got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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0b6e242
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People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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d652c18
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People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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61dd8d4
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She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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e6b5309
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It was a movie about American bombers in World War II and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this: American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground..
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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80f1cb4
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I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.
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reading
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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97a4d9f
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Just because you can read, write and do a little math, doesn't mean that you're entitled to conquer the universe.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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ae75e26
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It is just an illusion 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.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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4eb5cc7
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In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appalling powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed. In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazi's once were. And with good reason...
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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2be25b9
|
In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appalling powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed. In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazi's once were. And with good reason...
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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50404ba
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Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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15c3301
|
Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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1cc23be
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I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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dff7aac
|
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
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flawed
human-character
destruction
human-nature
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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cd3b190
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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."
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mankind
hope
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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be8d387
|
No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious & charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.
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politics
music
nonfiction
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kurt vonnegut |
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32d97cc
|
All right - I'll tell you what you did for me: you went for happy, silly, beautiful walks with me.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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887ce6e
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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."
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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458ebea
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If your brains were dynamite there wouldn't be enough to blow your hat off.
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stupidity
put-downs
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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0b1ebf0
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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.
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love
frontier
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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99fbca8
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Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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bda0d63
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She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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409dd3f
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We'd been apart so long--I'd been dead so long," she said in English. "I thought surely you'd built a new life, with no room in it for me. I'd hoped that." "My life is nothing but room for you." I said. "It could never be filled by anyone but you."
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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849be5a
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Everything is nothing, with a twist.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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ef9db5f
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You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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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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2852d2b
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There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.
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the-brothers-karamazov
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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cdf1d5b
|
It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love. It was not the thought that God was cruel that froze me. I had taught myself never to expect anything from Him. What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that had flickered out. How long I stood frozen there, I can..
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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011c7c0
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If I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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3850b13
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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."
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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a433372
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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 teac..
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life
tralfamadorians
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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528911b
|
I couldn't help wondering if that was what God put me on Earth for--to find out how much a man could take without breaking.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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3d30d0c
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And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.
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progress
responsibility
erring
mistakes
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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45d55ee
|
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.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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276340c
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Ting-a-ling mother fucker.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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7b43f7c
|
To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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f394be4
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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. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.
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Kurt Vonnegut |