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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes - Page 11

All Quotes Accidents Age Alcohol Apologizing Army Art Atheism Atheist Belief Bitterness Business Chaos Character Chemistry Children Christ Church College Communication Community Compassion Competition Country Creativity Culture Curiosity Dancing Democracy Design Dignity Doubt Dying Earth Evil Evolution Expectations Feelings Fighting Food Forgiveness Frustration Fun Funny Giving God Happiness Hard Work Hate Heart Heaven Hell Hiroshima Home Humanity Hurt Ignorance Imagination Inspirational Jazz Jesus Laughter Life Literature Loneliness Love Luck Lying Making Love Management Maturity Meaning Of Life Military Mountain Music Nature Opportunity Pain Past Philosophy Politics Progress Purpose Reading Reality Religion Revenge Running Safety School Science Science Fiction Shame Sleep Smoking Socialism Son Soul Students Stupidity Style Survival Teaching Technology Time Today Trade Tragedy Train Universe Waiting Wall War Water Wife Work Writing

What passes for culture in my head is really a bunch of commercials.

What passes for culture in my head is really a bunch of commercials.

Culture, Bunch

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.108, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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.

Believe, Hands, Years

Kurt Vonnegut (1969). “Slaughterhouse-five: or, The children's crusade, a duty-dance with death”

Science never cheered up anyone. The truth about the human situation is just too awful.

Science, Awful, Situation

Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.98, Penguin

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.

Music, Religious, Government

I've got at least one tiny corner of the universe I can make just the way I want it.

Self, Want, Way

This is what i find most encouraging about the writing trades: they allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into something like intelligence. They also allow lunatics to seem saner than sane.

Writing, People, Stupidity

Make war not on terrorism but on ignorance, on sickness and on environmental degradation.

War, Ignorance, Environmental

If I were a physics teacher or a science teacher, it'd be on my mind all the time as how the hell we really got this way. It's a perfectly natural human thought and, okay, if you go into the science class you can't think this. Well, alright, as soon as you leave you can start thinking about it again without giving aid and comfort to the lunatic fringe of the Christian religion.

Christian, Teacher, Thinking

"Kurt Vonnegut Judges Modern Society". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. January 23, 2006.

I've been living alone for so long, everything about me’s private. I’m surprised anyone’s able to understand a word I say.

Long, Able, Living Alone

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Mother Night: A Novel”, p.92, Dial Press

I had taught myself that a human being might as well look for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards and punishments that were fair.

Punishment, Gutters, Looks

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.153, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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: ETC.

Writing, People, Stories

Where is home? I've wondered where home is, and I realized, it's not Mars or someplace like that, it's Indianapolis when I was nine years old. I had a brother and a sister, a cat and a dog, and a mother and a father and uncles and aunts. And there's no way I can get there again.

Mother, Dog, Brother

"The world according to Kurt". Interview with Simon Houpt, Globe and Mail (Toronto), October 11, 2005.

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.

Artist, People, Appreciate

Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.23, Penguin

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

Life Changing, Slaughterhouse Five, Trying

Harold Bloom, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (2009). “Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five”, p.19, Infobase Publishing

There is no peace, I'm sorry to say. We find it. We lose it. We find it again. We lose it again.

Sorry, Loses, I'm Sorry

But there’s a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece: it’s that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here [indicates blackboard]. 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.

Fall, People, News

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.37, Seven Stories Press

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.

Forget Everything, Forget, Forget It

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.151, Dial Press

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.

Long Ago, Ideas, Sorrow

Kurt Vonnegut (1982). “Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage”, Dell Books

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.

Book, Thoughtful, Past

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.245, Dial Press

I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.

Believe, Healing, Way

FaceBook post by Kurt Vonnegut from Feb 23, 2015

Jokes can be noble. Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward - and since I can start thinking and striving again that much sooner.

Laughter, Frustration, Thinking

"Palm Sunday". Kurt Vonnegut's sermon at St. Clement's Church in New York City (1980), originally published in The Nation as "Hypocrites You Always Have With You", 1980.

Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people's actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be. So the Galapagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven in the next, and Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next--and on and on.

Islands, People, Heaven

Kurt Vonnegut (1999). “Galapagos: A Novel”, Dial Press

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.

Beautiful, Ugly Things, People

Kurt Vonnegut (1973). “Breakfast of champions: or, Goodbye blue Monday!”, Dell

He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next

Slaughterhouse Five, Next, Slaughterhouse 5

Kurt Vonnegut (1969). “Slaughterhouse-five: or, The children's crusade, a duty-dance with death”

Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn.

Looks, Sometimes, Wonder

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.11, Dial Press

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