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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes - Page 32

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

As Marilee and I were dressing, I whispered to her that I loved her with all my heart. What else was there to say? 'You don't. You can't,' she said.

As Marilee and I were dressing, I whispered to her that I loved her with all my heart. What else was there to say? 'You don't. You can't,' she said.

Heart, My Heart, Said

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

I have been a writer since 1949. I am self-taught. I have no theories about writing that might help others. When I write, I simply become what I seemingly must become. I am six feet two and weigh nearly two hundred pounds and am badly coordinated, except when I swim. All that borrowed meat does the writing. In the water I am beautiful.

Beautiful, Writing, Helping Others

Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.

Response, Physiological

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.3, Seven Stories Press

Beer, of course, is actually a depressant, but poor people will never stop hoping otherwise.

Beer, People, Hocus Pocus

Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.193, Penguin

There is a riddle about a man who is locked in a room with nothing but a bed and a calendar, and the question is: How does he survive? The answer is: He eats dates from the calendar and drinks from the springs of the bed.

Spring, Men, Bed

Kurt Vonnegut (1970). “The Sirens of Titan: An Original Novel”, New York : Dell

We're here on Earth to fart around

Earth, Fart

Kurt Vonnegut, Lee Stringer (2011). “Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation about Writing”, p.10, Seven Stories Press

You've got to be a good date for the reader.

Reader

Writers can treat their mental illnesses every day.

Mental Illness, Illness, Treats

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.109, Univ. Press of Mississippi

One thing in the Middlewest: If you're in my business you're aware of the low opinion both coasts have of the midlands. And that is quite mistaken. New York would be a Kokomo if it weren't for Middlewesterners coming there.

New York, Would Be, Opinion

I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve. The best idea in that apple, though, is making jazz.

Ideas, Apples, Giving

Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.84, Penguin

Start [writing] as close to the end as possible.

Writing, Ends

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

It used to be said of a man who had suffered a catastrophic setback in his line of work that he had been handed his head on a platter. We are being handed our heads with tweezers now.

Men, Lines, Used

"Timequake". Book by Kurt Vonnegut (Chapter 9, p. 38), September 22, 1997.

It is time for me to be dead for a little while - and then live again.

Littles

KURT VONNEGUT JR (1969). “SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE”

Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.

Writing, Stories, Done

Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.109, Penguin

I've written about Powers Hapgood. He was a Harvard graduate, son of a wealthy family who owned a cannery out there. After leaving Harvard, he went to work in coal mines and then was a CIO executive when I met him there, in Indianapolis.

Son, Leaving, Cio

My special situation was that I was the son and grandson of architects. And so I saw building. We were building the city, and that was exciting.

Son, Cities, Special

You know, I think the main purpose of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps is to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched clothes, so rich Americans can stand to look at them.

Marine, Army, Thinking

But I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got here. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these games going on that could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the crazymaking games going on today are love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf, and girls' basketball.

Basketball, Girl, Hate

There is nothing like death to say what is always such an artificial thing to say: The End.

Death, Ends, Artificial

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

It is a sobering thought that Gomer Pyle and the Beverly Hillbillies may be among our chief interstellar emissaries.

Modern Life, May, Chiefs

Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.

Parent, Literature, Cradle

We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. I used to think that science would save us, and science certainly tried. But we can't stand any more tremendous explosions, either for or against democracy.

Reading, Astrology, Government

Kurt Vonnegut's address to the graduating class at Bennington College, 1970.

The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.

Philosophy, Space, Three

Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.2, Dial Press

During the Vietnam War, Abbie Hoffman announced that the new high was banana peels taken rectally. So then FBI scientists stuffed banana peels up their asses to find out if this was true or not.

War, Taken, Vietnam

Kurt Vonnegut (2017). “A Man Without a Country”, p.108, Dial Press

The New York Daily News suggested that my biggest war crime was not killing myself like a gentleman. Presumably Hitler was a gentleman.

New York, War, Gentleman

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Mother Night: A Novel”, p.162, Dial Press

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