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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes - Page 16

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

Take it from somebody who has been around for a million years: When you get right down to it, food is practically the whole story every time.

Take it from somebody who has been around for a million years: When you get right down to it, food is practically the whole story every time.

Years, Stories, Whole

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

How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

Life, Nice, Numbness

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.140, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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.

War, Gun, Pigs

"Cat's Cradle". Book by Kurt Vonnegut (Chapter 114), 1963.

I am simply impressed by the unexpected insights which shower down on me when my job is to imagine, as contrasted with the woodenly familiar ideas which clutter my desk when my job is to tell the truth.

Jobs, Ideas, Unexpected

We have such a young culture that there is an opportunity to contribute wonderful new myths to it, which will be accepted.

Writing, Opportunity, Culture

I am of course a skeptic about the divinity of Christ and a scorner of the notion that there is a God who cares about how we are or what we do. ... Religious skeptics often become very bitter towards the end, as did Mark Twain. ... I know why I will become bitter. I will finally realize that I have had it right all along: that I will not see God, that there is no heaven or Judgement Day.

Religious, Heaven, Judgement

The artist makes his living by pretending, by putting it in a meaningful hole though no such holes exist.

Meaningful, Artist, Pretending

Never have I risked my life, or even my comfort, in the service of mankind. Shame on me.

Comfort, Shame, Shame On Me

Also, I think that, you know, it's tribal behavior. I don't think that Pat Robertson, for instance, doubts that we evolved. He is simply representing a tribe.

Thinking, Doubt, Tribes

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

The heartbreaking necessity of lying about reality and the heartbreaking impossibilty of lying about it

Lying, Reality, Heartbreaking

. . . but the Universe is an awfully big place. There is room enough for an awful lot of people to be right about things and still not agree.

People, Awful, Rooms

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “The Sirens of Titan: An Original Novel”, Laurel

I try to keep deep love out of my stories because, once that particular subject comes up, it is almost impossible to talk about anything else. Readers don't want to hear about anything else. They go gaga about love. If a lover in a story wins his true love, that's the end of the tale, even if World War III is about to begin, and the sky is black with flying saucers.

Love, War, Winning

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.185, Univ. Press of Mississippi

So I went to New York City to be born again. It was and remains easy for most Americans to go somewhere else and start anew. I wasn't like my parents. I didn't have any supposedly sacred piece of land or shoals of friends to leave behind. Nowhere has the number zero been of more philisophical value than in the United States.... and when the [train] plunged into a tunnel under New York City, with it's lining of pipes and wires, I was out of the womb and into the birth canal.

Zero, New York, Cities

Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.

Past, Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim

Harold Bloom, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (2009). “Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five”, p.14, Infobase Publishing

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

Happiness, Growing Up, Disappointment

Artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are supersensitive. They keel over like canaries in coal mines filled with poison gas, long before more robust types realize that any danger is there.

Artist, Long, Poison

"Physicist, Purge Thyself". Chicago Tribune Magazine, June 22, 1969.

Anyone unable to understand how useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.

Lying, Book, Cradle

There was a time when I could vote for economic justice, and I can't anymore.

Justice, Vote, Economic

Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. June 12, 2003.

What's the point of being alive," she said, "if you're not going to communicate?

Alive, Said, Communicate

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, p.39, Dial Press

Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.

Music, Musician, Knows

Kurt Vonnegut, Lee Stringer (2011). “Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation about Writing”, p.42, Seven Stories Press

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

Writing, Character, Roots

Kurt Vonnegut (1999). “Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction”, Putnam Publishing Group

If somebody says, "I love you," to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol-holder requires? "I love you, too."

Love, Life, Pistols

"Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions)". Book by Kurt Vonnegut, May 1974.

Socialism is, in fact, a form of Christianity, people wishing to imitate Christ.

People, Wish, Facts

Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. June 12, 2003.

You are pooped and demoralised,” read Dwayne. “Why wouldn’t you be? Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn’t meant to be reasonable.

Breakfast Of Champions, Reason, Courses

Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it.

Life, Would Be

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.67, Seven Stories Press

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