America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.


Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Almost every war ends, properly, with its veterans feeling deceived and pointless and gullible, with...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can't get out of, ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrol...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very much wi...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a ver...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
There's only one me, and I'm stuck with him.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowled...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
I'm wild again, beguiled again, a wimpering, simpering child I am.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around i...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Find a subject you care about and which you feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
I'd rather have written 'Cheers' than anything I've written.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
There is no way a beautiful woman can live up to what she looks like for an appreciable length of ti...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Thinking doesn't seem to help very much. The human brain is too high-powered to have many practical ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
We are what we imagine ourselves to be.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
If somebody says, ''I love you,'' to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What ca...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
High School is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very much wi...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR.
As Bokonon says: 'peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Christ, back in Chicago, we don’t make bicycles any more. It’s all
human relations now. The...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be rea...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Being American is to eat a lot of beef steak, and boy, we've got a lot more beef steak than any othe...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR.
Everything about life is a joke. Don't you know that?
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Popular as he was as a graduation speaker, Vonnegut never graduated from college.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Men want a lot of pals—and they don’t want people to get mad at them.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
One sort of optional thing you might do is to realize there are six seasons instead of four. The poe...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
My cash cows, the slick magazines, were put out of business by TV.
KURT VONNEGUT
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the ki...
KURT VONNEGUT
Oh, sure, we have another world war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders ...
KURT VONNEGUT
Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been...
KURT VONNEGUT
If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely y...
KURT VONNEGUT
There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.
KURT VONNEGUT
I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.
KURT VONNEGUT
I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know...
KURT VONNEGUT
If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.
KURT VONNEGUT
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
KURT VONNEGUT
Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudic...
KURT VONNEGUT
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thin...
KURT VONNEGUT
Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn't always so ...
KURT VONNEGUT
People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll h...
KURT VONNEGUT
If somebody says, I love you, to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can an...
KURT VONNEGUT
I get up at 7:30 and work four hours a day. Nine to twelve in the morning, five to six in the evenin...
KURT VONNEGUT
Thinking doesn't seem to help very much. The human brain is too high-powered to have many practical ...
KURT VONNEGUT
What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It's a very rough one, but you went away a boy and c...
KURT VONNEGUT
The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowled...
KURT VONNEGUT
Being American is to eat a lot of beef steak, and boy, we've got a lot more beef steak than any othe...
KURT VONNEGUT
... this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so inc...
KURT VONNEGUT
The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very much wi...
KURT VONNEGUT
We are all what we pretend to be, but, we had better be very careful what we pretend.
KURT VONNEGUT
I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a ver...
KURT VONNEGUT
I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds o...
KURT VONNEGUT
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
KURT VONNEGUT
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than befo...
KURT VONNEGUT
People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they'll have...
KURT VONNEGUT
There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos inste...
KURT VONNEGUT
There's only one me, and I'm stuck with him.
KURT VONNEGUT
I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled Science Fiction and I would like out, par...
KURT VONNEGUT
Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.
KURT VONNEGUT
Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us hu...
KURT VONNEGUT
There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, I said, but no good reason ever to have without reser...
KURT VONNEGUT
Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but...
KURT VONNEGUT
It was a thunderingly beautiful experience -- voluptuous, sexual, dangerous, and expensive as hell.
KURT VONNEGUT
We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrol...
KURT VONNEGUT
Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.
KURT VONNEGUT
Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this messag...
KURT VONNEGUT
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to rem...
KURT VONNEGUT
I have no degree in biochemistry, neither do I have one in mechanical engineering, as the Army saw f...
KURT VONNEGUT
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the countr...
KURT VONNEGUT
What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American f...
KURT VONNEGUT
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since...
KURT VONNEGUT