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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes - Page 23

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

In those days great teachers at Shortridge [High School] were celebrities. I would look up to them.

In those days great teachers at Shortridge [High School] were celebrities. I would look up to them.

Teacher, School, Looks

I have had all I can stand of not taking myself seriously.

I Can

Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Bluebeard”, Dial Press

His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.

Fighting, Hands, Passive Resistance

Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.203, Dial Press

My soul seemed as foul as smoke from burning cat fur.

Cat, Soul, Fur

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.27, Dial Press

On Tralfamadore, says Billy Pilgrim, there isn't much interest in Jesus Christ. The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Tralfamadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin - who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements. So it goes.

Jesus, Mind, Billy Pilgrim

KURT VONNEGUT JR (1969). “SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE”

...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.

Past, Slaughterhouse Five, Alive

Harold Bloom, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (2009). “Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five”, p.8, Infobase Publishing

Everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been.

Has Beens

Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.20, Dial Press

Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you have a rewarding time, or you don't. You don't have to say why afterward. You don't have to say anything.

Art, Say Anything, Social

Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.129, Penguin

Son--they say there isn't any royalty in this country, but do you want me to tell you how to be king of the United States of America? Just fall through the hole in a privy and come out smelling like a rose.

Country, Kings, Fall

Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.62, Dial Press

I think William Shakespeare was the wisest human being I ever heard of. To be perfectly frank, though, that's not saying much.

Thinking, Hocus Pocus, Heard

Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.104, Penguin

A joke is like building a mousetrap from scratch. You have to work pretty hard to make the thing snap when it is supposed to snap.

Scratches, Building, Jokes

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.128, Seven Stories Press

I have no culture, no humane harmony in my brains. I can't live without a culture anymore.

Brain, Culture, Harmony

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

Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so. By the same token, though, I suppose that boulders and mountains and moons could be accused of being a little too phlegmatic.

Mistake, Writing, Moon

Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.41, Dial Press

I have become an enthusiast for the printed word again. I have to be that, I now understand, because I want to be a character in all of my works. I can do that in print. In a movie, somehow, the author always vanishes.

Character, Printed Word, Want

"Between Time and Timbuktu". Movie script by Kurt Vonnegut et al. Preface, 1972.

There is this feeling that I have a destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life.

Destiny, Feelings, Far Away

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “God Bless You, Mr Rosewater”, p.23, Random House

Each one of us has to be what he or she is.

Conformity, Non Conformity

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.267, Dial Press

There was a still life on Billy's bedside table-two pills, an ashtray with three lipstick-stained cigarettes in it, one cigarette still burning, and a glass of water. The water was dead. So it goes. Air was trying to get out of the dead water. Bubbles were clinging to the walls of the glass, too weak to climb out.

Wall, Glasses, Air

KURT VONNEGUT JR (1969). “SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE”

The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not. Military science, on the other hand, treats man as garbage - and his children, and his cities, too. Military science is probably right about the contemptibility of man in the vastness of the universe. Still - I deny that contemptibility, and I beg you to deny it, through the creation of appreciation of art.

Appreciation, Art, Children

Kurt Vonnegut's Commencement Address at Bennington College, 1970.

How embarrassing to be human.

Clever, Embarrassing, Embarrassment

Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.216, Penguin

In 1844, Karl Marx said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." He said this at a time when opium and opium derivatives were the only painkillers. And he said it helped a little. He might as well have said, "Religion is the aspirin of the people."

People, Opiates, Aspirin

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

[People] want to feel superior, so they imagine we're Bible thumpers and uneducated and all that.

People, Bible Thumpers, Want

As a matter of social class Ku Klux Klan would have been regarded as white trash.

Class, Ku Klux Klan, White

One [television] program was an interminable exploration of the question: can a woman with a low I.Q. be happily married to a man with a high one? The answer seemed to be yes and no.

Men, Yes And No, Answers

The trouble with God isn't that He so seldom makes Himself known to us... He's holding you and me and everybody else by the scruff of the neck practically _constantly... Contentedly adrift in the cosmos, were you?... That is a perfect description of a non-epiphany, that rarest of moments, when God Almighty lets go of the scruff of your neck and lets you be human for a little while.

Letting Go, Perfect, Religion

I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer.

Writing, Drug, Salesman

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.153, Dial Press

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