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368f030
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When the last living thing Has died on account of us, How poetical it would be If Earth could say, In a voice floating up Perhaps From the floor Of the Grand Canyon,
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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431202f
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I can have oodles of charm when I want to.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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c30bd0f
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God made mud. God got lonesome. So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!" "See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars." And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done. Nice going, God. Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have. I feel very unimportant compared to You. The only way I can feel the least bi..
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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53b8bd6
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Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.
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first-impressions
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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3373d9e
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Round and round we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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03d3175
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All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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bec357f
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The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.
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science
life
philosophy
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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0706ac0
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So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.
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women
kurt-vonnegut
manipulation
girls
machines
thinking
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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bbc6363
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It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?"
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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5b55eef
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There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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52cabcd
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There are plenty of good reasons for fighting...but no good reason to ever hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty 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. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive....it's that part of an imbecile that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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b213112
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Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committi..
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greed
failed-systems
class
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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225b307
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Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?
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life
plato
unexamined-life
socrates
meaning-of-life
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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56923ea
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A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shockingly indecent society.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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1ce4c0d
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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.
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life
vonnegut
forget
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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60dec19
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in nonsense is strength
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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9e71b79
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Be patient, Ophelia.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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1a3bfd0
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As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient lit..
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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553270d
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It was very exciting for her, taking his dignity away in the name of love.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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9572d8d
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Self-taught, are you?" Julian Castle asked Newt. "Isn't everybody?" Newt inquired. "Very good answer." --
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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84fd953
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Life is no way to treat an animal.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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c0c3aa0
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But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes. 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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546b565
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The big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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ac05bdb
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For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). 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 bre..
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christianity
jesus
christian
christ
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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4dfbdc6
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As Bokonon says: 'peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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c652bde
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It's the emptiest and yet the fullest of all human messages: 'Good-bye.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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771f7fb
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Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temp..
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dance
art
exaggeration
film
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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a578476
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The truth is, we know so little about life, we don't really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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411de15
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If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other people's vanity and foolishness.
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shakespeare
futility
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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0fee9a5
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There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
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life
philosophy
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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d9e595f
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Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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6c289eb
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Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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ec13417
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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.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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2938ac5
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New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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06d4997
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He was talking about the sign that said 'THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE.
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futility
inspirational
ignorance
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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4e0646e
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I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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9af1010
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When everything was beautiful and nothing hurt...
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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9b88b2d
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All people are insane. They will do anything at any time, and God help anybody who looks for reasons.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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92580c7
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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."
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inspirational
ignorance
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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47c52fa
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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.
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writing
humor
inspirational
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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086458b
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I can't tell if you're serious or not,' said the driver. I won't know myself until I find out if life is serious or not,' said Trout. 'It's dangerous, I know, and it can hurt a lot. That doesn't necessarily mean it's serious, too.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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fb3e60a
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What's the point of being alive," she said, "if you're not going to communicate?"
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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d00e6a0
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No art is possible without a dance with death, he wrote.
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Kurt Vonnegut |
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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. |