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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes - Page 24

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

We don't make bicycles anymore. It's all human relations now. The eggheads sit around trying to figure out new ways for everyone to be happy. Nobody can get fired, no matter what; and if somebody does accidentally make

We don't make bicycles anymore. It's all human relations now. The eggheads sit around trying to figure out new ways for everyone to be happy. Nobody can get fired, no matter what; and if somebody does accidentally make a bicycle, the union accuses us of cruel and inhuman practices and the government confiscates the bicycle for back taxes and gives it to a blind man in Afghanistan.

Men, Practice, Giving

If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.

Hurt, Art, Writing

Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.49, Penguin

The function of the artist is to make people like life better than they have before.

Artist, People, Function

Kurt Vonnegut (2013). “If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young”, p.7, RosettaBooks

Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself -- will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows -- some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history -- But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, 'This fact I can do without.

Thinking, Missing, Teeth

Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes.

Beautiful, Sometimes, Breakfast Of Champions

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

All the great story lines are great practical jokes that people fall for over and over again.

Fall, People, Stories

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations”, p.47, Melville House

I went to high school in Indianapolis I learned how to walk around looking tough because everybody had to do that. I go out there occasionally and they're still doing it, walking around looking very tough because something might happen.

School, Might, Tough

It is harder to be unhappy when you are eating.

Food, Unhappy, Eating

I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living.

Lying, Thinking, People

Harold Bloom, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (2009). “Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five”, p.135, Infobase Publishing

profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their ears and eyes to you.

Eye, People, Ears

Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.13, Penguin

I think... it is somehow very useful, and maybe even essential, for a fine artist to have to somehow make his peace on the canvas with all the things he cannot do. That is what attracts us to serious paintings, I think: that shortfall, which we might call 'personality,' or maybe even 'pain.'

Pain, Struggle, Artist

Kurt Vonnegut (1987). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, New York : Delacorte Press

A lot of people were opposed to it. A lot of people were for it. I myself think about it as little as possible.

Thinking, People, Littles

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, p.206, Dial Press

Literature is by definition opinionated. It is bound to provoke the arguments in many quarters, not excluding the hometown or even the family of the author.

Literature, Definitions, Argument

Source: artisticactivism.org

Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think that money was so valuable?

Thinking, Wake Up, Idiot

You can only be funny if you have matters of great importance on your mind.

Mind, Matter, Importance

A committee of three can accomplish much if two don't show up.

Business, Two, Three

The paintings by dead men who were poor most of their lives are the most valuable pieces in my collection. And if an artist wants to really jack up the prices of his creations, may I suggest this: suicide.

Suicide, Artist, Men

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, p.53, Dial Press

I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud.

Lucky, Looks, Mud

What do my science fiction stories have in common with pornography? Fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world, I'm told.

Fiction Stories, World, Common

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.133, Univ. Press of Mississippi

You have to go, but I have to stay.

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, p.193, Dial Press

I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy - because we're experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And that's what's going on now.

Years, Iraq, Giving

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

There are lots of things worth doing that are no way to make a living. They are agreeable ways to make a more agreeable life.

Way

Source: artisticactivism.org

I didn't know then what a sperm was, and so wouldn't understand his answer for several years. "My boy," he said, "you are descended from a long line of determined, resourceful, microscopic tadpoles-- champions every one.

Boys, Years, Long

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

One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.

Might, Suspects, Universe

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, p.229, Dial Press

I guess everybody who isn't dead yet is a survivor.

Survival, Survivor

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

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