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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes - Page 19

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

Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.

Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.

Cancer, Lakes, Community

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.80, Univ. Press of Mississippi

It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.

Blessing, Literature

Kurt Vonnegut (2013). “Vonnegut by the Dozen”, p.21, The Nation Co. LP

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

Lonely, Loneliness, Being Alone

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

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

Media, White, America

Ink and paper are as cheap as sand or water, almost. No board of directors has to convene in order to decide whether we can afford to write down this or that. I myself once staged the end of the world on two pieces of paper- at a cost of ...less than a penny, including wear and tear on my typewriter ribbon and the seat of my pants. 'Think of that.

Writing, Thinking, Typewriters

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

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.

Nature, Philosophy, Sleep

FaceBook post by Kurt Vonnegut from May 27, 2016

The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow.

Inspirational, Art, Practice

Billy covered his head with his blanket. He always covered his head when his mother came to see him in the mental ward - always got much sicker until she went away. It wasn’t that she was ugly, or had bad breath or a bad personality. She was a perfectly nice, standard-issue, brown-haired, white woman with a high school education. She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone through so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn’t really like life at all.

Mother, Nice, School

It's the emptiest and yet the fullest of all human messages: 'Good-bye.

Goodbye, Messages, Good Bye

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, p.211, Dial Press

It's all like an ocean!" cried Dostoevski. I say it's all like cellophane.

Ocean, Cried

Kurt Vonnegut (1999). “Breakfast of Champions: Or, Goodbye Blue Monday!”, CNIB, 197

I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That's why we've got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.

Thinking, Helping, Evolution

Interview with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show", September 13, 2005.

We could have saved the earth, but we were too damned cheap.

Nature, Earth, Environment

"If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young". Book by Kurt Vonnegut, 2013.

You can't just eat good food. You've got to talk about it too.

Good Food

I am an atheist (or at best a Unitarian who winds up in church quite a lot).

Atheist, Wind, Religion

Anybody with any sense knows the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by.

Solar System, Collars, Celluloid

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.63, Univ. Press of Mississippi

When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away - even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

Writing, Character, Glasses

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

There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Baby, Kindness, Be Kind

FaceBook post by Kurt Vonnegut from Aug 27, 2014

Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer.

Work, Writing, Common

We'd been apart so long--I'd been dead so long," she said in English. "I thought surely you'd built a new life, with no room in it for me. I'd hoped that." "My life is nothing but room for you." I said. "It could never be filled by anyone but you.

Long, New Life, Rooms

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Mother Night: A Novel”, p.80, Dial Press

World War II made war reputable because it was a just war. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. You know how many other just wars there have been? Not many. And the guys I served with became my brothers. If it weren't for World War II, I'd now be the garden editor of The Indianapolis Star. I wouldn't have moved away.

Brother, Stars, War

But I replied that what made being alive almost worthwhile for me, besides music, was all the saints I met, who could be anywhere. By saints I meant people who behaved decently in a strikingly indecent society.

People, Saint, Alive

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.106, Seven Stories Press

People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.

Dream, People, Church

Kurt Vonnegut (1981). “Palm Sunday: an autobiographical collage”

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.

Memorable, Writing, Angel

FaceBook post by Kurt Vonnegut from Aug 20, 2014

If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.

Lying, Writing, Men

"Cat's Cradle". Book by Kurt Vonnegut, ch. 127, 1963.

If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy.

Nature, Thinking, People

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