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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes - Page 5

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

Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people

Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on.

Moving, Book, Artist

The Great Depression was going on, so that the station and the streets teemed with homeless people, just as they do today. The newspapers were full of stories of worker layoffs and farm foreclosures and bank failures, just as they are today. All that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television, we can hide a Great Depression. We may even be hiding a Third World War.

War, People, May

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, p.92, Dial Press

During my three years in Vietnam, I certainly heard plenty of last words by dying American footsoldiers. Not one of them, however, had illusions that he had somehow accomplished something worthwhile in the process of making the Supreme Sacrifice.

Sacrifice, Years, Dying

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “Hocus Pocus”, p.9, Random House

Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it.

Writing, Tired, People

I just know that there are plenty of people who are in terrible trouble and can't get out. And so I'm impatient with those who think that it's easy for people to get out of trouble.

Thinking, People, Trouble

Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.89, Univ. Press of Mississippi

There are plenty of good reasons for fighting...but no good reason to ever hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive....it's that part of an imbecile that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.

Hate, War, Fighting

Those who live by electronics die by electronics. Sic semper tyrannis.

Technology, Electronics, Live By

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Player Piano”, p.60, Dial Press

Every sentence must do one of two things-reveal character or advance the action.

Writing, Character, Two

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

The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.

Humor, Way, Truthful

Interview with J. Rentilly, www.mcsweeneys.net. September 18, 2002.

A society is only as healthy as its ideas are humane.

Ideas, Healthy, Humane

Vietnam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists by dropping things on them from airplanes.

Country, Airplane, America

Kurt Vonnegut (2010). “Breakfast Of Champions”, p.85, Random House

We're a terribly lonesome society. For all I know, all societies are. You can make a few new friends, that's all. You can't change history. History is happening to us now.

New Friends, Lonesome, Can't Change

"Vonnegut at 80". Interview with David Hoppe, www.nuvo.net. January 1, 2003.

A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shockingly indecent society.

Saint, Behave, Persons

There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.

Love, Life, People

Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.18, Dial Press

I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.

Memorable, Thinking, Intelligent

The Observer, December 27, 1987.

Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead.

Life, Thinking, Should Have

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

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

Heart, Humor, Caring

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

Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

Thinking, Turkeys, Environmental

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.42, Seven Stories Press

During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we've ever been in - and which we lost - every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.

Country, War, Artist

"Vonnegut at 80". Interview with David Hoppe, www.nuvo.net. January 1, 2003.

It shook up Trout to realize that even he could bring evil into the world — in the form of bad ideas.

Ideas, Evil, Trout

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

What you can become is the miracle you were born to be through the work that you do.

Miracle, Born

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.56, Seven Stories Press

All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States - and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!

People, Giving, Atheism

The worst thing about film, from my point of view, is that it cripples illusions which I have encouraged people to create in their heads. Film doesn't create illusion. It makes them impossible. It is a bullying form of reality, like the model rooms in the furniture department of Bloomingdale's.

Bullying, Reality, Views

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

The system promotes to the top those who don't care about the planet.

Care, Planets, Don't Care

You don't do art for any other reason than to help your soul grow.

Art, Soul, Helping

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