|
8e0f580
|
God damn it, you've got to be kind.
|
|
kindness
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
78a1738
|
The darkest secret of this country, I am afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they belong to a much higher civilization somewhere else. That higher civilization doesn't have to be another country. It can be the past instead--the United States as it was before it was spoiled by immigrants and the enfranchisement of the blacks. This state of mind allows too many of us to lie and cheat and steal from the rest of us, to sell us..
|
|
poverty
imperialism
race
inequality
colonialism
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
3639916
|
She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].
|
|
religion
|
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
|
f5676cf
|
Women are so useless and unimaginative, aren't they? All they ever think of planting in the dirt is the seed of something beautiful or edible. The only missile they can ever think of throwing at anybody is a ball or a bridal bouquet.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
84b6069
|
The heartbreaking necessity of lying about reality and the heartbreaking impossibilty of lying about it
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
57f26a4
|
love is a hawk with velvet claws love is a rock with heart and veins
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
adc99a4
|
What a fool I would have been to let self-respect interfere with my happiness!
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
ce62dfb
|
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 |
|
66676a7
|
Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead.
|
|
wisdom
thinking
humans
|
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
|
106b7a2
|
The biggest truth to face now - what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my life - is that I don't think people give a damn whether the planet goes or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
b4a5e36
|
profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their ears and eyes to you.
|
|
profanity
power
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
38e4f97
|
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 an..
|
|
religion
humility
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
157aeaa
|
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." --
|
|
socialism
equality
inquisition
stalin
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
c27170f
|
I don't reveal to her that I love her. I keep poker faced. She might as well be looking at a cantaloupe, there is so little information in my face, but my heart is beating.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
d74a8e7
|
The crowd, having been promised nothing, felt cheated, having received nothing.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
c96ddc8
|
The champagne was dead. So it goes.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
51fadb5
|
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..
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut jr. |
|
c75b855
|
Much of the conversation in the country consisted of lines from television shows, both past and present.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
6b3eb57
|
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..
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
ed13669
|
Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
ba97eaf
|
To be is to do - Socrates. To do is to be - Jean-Paul Satre. Do be do be do -Frank Sinatra.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
b6fe4f0
|
You know, I think the main purpose of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps is to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched clothes, so rich Americans can stand to look at them.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
37af61e
|
Roses are red, And ready for plucking, You're sixteen, And ready for high school.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
ae3011d
|
There is no peace, I'm sorry to say. We find it. We lose it. We find it again. We lose it again.
|
|
peace
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
a3a748c
|
My Uncle Alex, who is up in Heaven now, one of the things he found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, "If this isn't nice, what is?" So I hope that you will do the same for the rest of your lives. When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pau..
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
acb7030
|
The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double to 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000. I suppose they will all want dignity, I said.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
3e22862
|
Americans . . . are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
|
629fd7f
|
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.
|
|
science
philosophy
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
fc9ae07
|
Live by the foma* that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy. *Harmless untruths
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
de932fd
|
The most heartbreakingly beautiful girl I ever hope to see
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
486c266
|
I have had all I can stand of not taking myself seriously.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
a2ab2d8
|
The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sur..
|
|
jesus
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
d9f7712
|
You're the man who stands on the street corner with a roll of toilet paper, and written on each square are the words, 'I love you.' And each passer-by, no matter who, gets a square all his or her own. I don't want my square of toilet paper.' I didn't realize it toilet paper.
|
|
love
vonnegut
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
5fe044d
|
I wish you'd help me look into a more interesting problem - namely, my sanity.
|
|
therapy
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
1867ac6
|
I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.
|
|
misrepresentation
technology
|
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
|
754e582
|
When you get right down to it, everybody's having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everyone. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
2c9181c
|
She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies. Men looked at her and wanted to fill her up with babies right away.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
4ddc86a
|
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 tha..
|
|
relationships
human
life
machines
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
705b29d
|
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.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
ac2fb70
|
Only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people ran for class president.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
7c55199
|
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 sto..
|
|
education
diversity
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
2ec2605
|
Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
2331074
|
when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
93b417b
|
Being an American means never having to say you're sorry.
|
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |