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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes - Page 18

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

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Writing, Should Have, Giving

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

War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.

War, Gun, Two

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.88, Seven Stories Press

Why throw money at problems? That is what money is for. Should the nation's wealth be redistributed? It has been and continues to be redistributed to a few people in a manner strikingly unhelpful.

People, Problem, Wealth

Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.144, Penguin

There isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.

Love, Beautiful, Book

KURT VONNEGUT JR (1969). “SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE”

Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales.

Memorable, Player, Government

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.135, Univ. Press of Mississippi

As far as I'm concerned ... the Universe is a junk yard, with everything overpriced. I am through poking around in the junk heaps, looking for bargains. Every so-called bargain ... has been connected by fine wires to a dynamite bouquet.

Wire, Junk, Yards

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

Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end, And our God will take things back that He to us did lend. And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God, Why just go ahead and scold Him. He'll just smile and nod.

Crazy, World, Want

"Cat's Cradle". Book by Kurt Vonnegut, 1963.

Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not. So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things. What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance. And all music is.

Veterans Day, Want, Sacred Things

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

The only thing I ever learned was that some people are lucky and other people aren't and not even a graduate of the Harvard Business School can say why.

School, People, Luck

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

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

Time, Hipster, Slaughterhouse Five

Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency.

Common Decency, Littles, Slapstick

One thing I found out was that we need extended families. We need gangs. And, of course, if they're tribes and clans and so forth have been dispersed by the industrial revolution by people looking for work wherever they can find it. And a nuclear family, a man, a woman and kids and a dog and cat is no survival scheme at all. Horribly vulnerable.

Dog, Cat, Kids

"Now" with David Brancaccio, www.pbs.org. October 21, 2005.

Here was what Kilgore Trout cried out to me in my father's voice: "Make me young, make me young, make me young!

Father, Voice, Trout

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

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

Tattoo, Beautiful, Hurt

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations”, p.133, Melville House

You know what truth is? [...] It's some crazy thing my neighbor believes. If I want to make friends with him, I ask him what he believes. He tells me, and I say, "Yeah, yeah - ain't it the truth?

Crazy, Real, Believe

FaceBook post by Kurt Vonnegut from May 25, 2016

If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.

Would Be, Forgotten, Reasonable

Luck is not the hand of God.... Luck is the way the wind swirls and the dust settles eons after God has passed by.

Dust, Hands, Wind

If it weren't for the people always getting tangled up with the machinery... Earth would be an engineer's paradise.

People, Tangled, Would Be

The chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was too late, how heartless and greedy they were.

Believe, Sea, Pirate

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

My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps right on doing bad, dumb things.

Dumb, Soul, Meat

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, p.273, Dial Press

The only proof he needed for the existance of God was music.

Music, Proof, Needed

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.66, Seven Stories Press

I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled "Science Fiction" ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.

Mistake, Fiction, Serious

"Science Fiction". The New York Times Book Review, September 5, 1965.

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.

Forever, Searching For Love, Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.97, Dial Press

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

Hands, Astrology, People

Humanists try to behave decently and honorably without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. The creator of the universe has been unknown to us so far. We serve as well as we can to the highest abstraction of which we have some understanding, which is our community.

Punishment, Afterlife, Expectations

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