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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes - Page 7

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

bergeron's epitaph for the planet, i remember, which he said should be carved in big letters in a wall of the grand canyon for the flying-saucer people to find was this: WE COULD HAVE SAVED IT, BUT WE WERE TOO DOGGONE

bergeron's epitaph for the planet, i remember, which he said should be carved in big letters in a wall of the grand canyon for the flying-saucer people to find was this: WE COULD HAVE SAVED IT, BUT WE WERE TOO DOGGONE CHEAP. only he didn't say "doggone.

Wall, People, Flying

Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.102, Penguin

People who are wary of what they might find in a book if they opened one are right to be.

Book, People, Might

Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.62, Penguin

Being an American means never having to say you're sorry.

Love, Movie, Romantic

Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.70, Penguin

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue, the monograph went on. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact how hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves.

Believe, Slaughterhouse Five, Facts

"Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death". Book by Kurt Vonnegut (Chapter 5, p. 129), 1969.

Do I resent rich people? No. The best or worst I can do is notice them. I agree with the great Socialist writer George Orwell, who felt that rich people were poor people with money.

People, Rich, Poor

Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.146, Penguin

My God, the religious right will not acknowledge what a merciful person Jesus was.

Religious, Jesus, Acknowledge

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

Sometimes I wonder if he wasn't born dead. I never met a man who was less interested in the living. Sometimes I think that's the trouble with the world: too many people in high places who are stone-cold dead.

Men, Thinking, People

"Cat's Cradle". Book by Kurt Vonnegut (Chapter 33), 1963.

The truth is, we know so little about life, we don't really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.

News, Littles, Truth Is

Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.37, Seven Stories Press

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Writing, Editors, Rejection

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

It's perfectly ordinary to be a socialist. It's perfectly normal to be in favor of fire departments.

Fire, Perfectly Normal, Ordinary

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

But anyway, it's obvious through human experience that extended families and tribes are terribly important. We can do without an extended family as human beings about as easily as we can do without vitamins or essential minerals.

Important, Essentials, Vitamins

"Kurt Vonnegut Judges Modern Society". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. January 23, 2006.

It's only recently that I've come to understand that writers are not marginal to our society, that they, in fact, do all our thinking for us, that we are writing myths and our myths are believed, and that old myths are believed until someone writes a new one.

Writing, Thinking, Our Society

Any man who would change the World in a significant way must have showmanship, a genial willingness to shed other people's blood, and a plausible new religion to introduce during the brief period of repentance and horror that usually follows bloodshed.

Men, Blood, People

Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.176, Dial Press

There are too many of us and we are all too far apart.

The government satirizes itself. All we can wish is that there will be a large number of Americans who will realize how dumb this all is, and how greedy and how vicious. Such an audience is dwindling all the time because of TV.

Government, Numbers, Dumb

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

The things other people have put into my head, at any rate, do not fit together nicely, are often useless and ugly, are out of proportion with one another, are out of proportion with life as it really is outside my head.

People, Together, Useless

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

Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn't it such a relief to have somebody say that?

Relief, Literature, Realizing

But some of the nonsense was evil, since it concealed great crimes. For example, teachers of children in the United States of America wrote this date on blackboards again and again, and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy: 1492. The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.

Teacher, Children, Pride

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

The polls demonstrate that 50 percent of Americans who get their news from TV think Saddam Hussein was behind the Twin Towers attack. Man, have they got ways for getting half-truths out right away now, thanks to TV! I think TV is a calamity in a democracy.

Men, Thinking, Democracy

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

I can see where influential people would like Maharishi better than Jesus. My God, if the Beatles and Mia Farrow went to Jesus, He'd tell them to give all their money away.

Jesus, Giving, People

Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?

Plato, What If, Meaning Of Life

Extenuating circumstance to be mentioned on Judgment Day: We never asked to be born in the first place.

Firsts, Judgment, Born

Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.184, Penguin

Any form of government, not just Capitalism, is whatever people who have all our money, drunk or sober, sane or insane, decide to do today.

Government, People, Drunk

Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.169, Penguin

There was a message written in pencil on the tiles by the roller towel. This was it: What is the purpose of life? Trout plundered his pockets for a pen or pencil. He had an answer to the question. But he had nothing to write with, not even a burnt match. So he left the question unanswered, but here is what he would have written, if he had found anything to write with: To be the eyes and ears and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool.

Writing, Eye, Pockets

How embarrassing it is to be human.

Embarrassing, Humans

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