History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.


Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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148She once said, "Just because you have talent doesn't mean you have to you have to do something wi...
NANETTE VONNEGUT
In seventh grade, with some vague sense that I wanted to be a writer, I crouched in the junior high ...
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Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. -Kurt Vonnegut.
KURT VONNEGUT
Any writer my age almost can't get away from being influenced by Kurt Vonnegut, partially becaus...
CHRIS CRUTCHER
I read a lot of short fiction, like Kurt Vonnegut and Raymond Carver and Wells Tower.
LORDE
Scum of the Earth as some may be in their daily lives, they can all be saints in emergencies.
KURT VONNEGUT
As Richard Pryor was to Eddie Murphy, that's what Kurt Vonnegut was to me.
CHRISTOPHER MOORE
We have this habit of romanticizing the lives of writers. I remember when I was a kid, I was like, &...
JOHN GREEN
A walk?" said Catharine.
"One foot in front of the other," said Newt, "through leaves, over bri...
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Society is more concerned with material possessions than it is with the true love and compassion of ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
The most radical, audacious thing to think is that there might be some point to working hard and thi...
KURT VONNEGUT
Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but...
KURT VONNEGUT
Kurt Vonnegut said, 'The best of Bob and Ray is virtually indistinguishable from the worst.'...
BOB ELLIOTT
Official history is merely a veil to hide the truth of what really happened. When the veil is lifted...
DAVID ICKE
I really began to love to read while in high school, and my favorite authors were my heroes: J.D. Sa...
LOUIS SACHAR
Only a handful of individuals in human history can be truly hailed as Christians, such as Tolstoy, G...
ABHIJIT NASKAR
I want the people of New Jersey to jump off a cliff like Kurt Vonnegut so I can show them how to fly...
RICHIE SAMBORA
I can make another list because the choice is mine. A list of what to do. So I won’t be listless e...
JOHNNY RICH
One of the most beneficial and valuable gifts we can give to ourselves in this life: is allowing our...
C. JOYBELL C.
Tiek uzskatīts, ka pēc apkaušanas jāvalda kapa klusumam, un valda jau arī, tikai putni klaigā.
KURT VONNEGUT
It is a lie.
ARTHUR MILLER
History is full of surprises, and the next century will be no exception.
BILLY GRAHAM
There is a great difference between discoveries and inventions. With discoveries, one can always be ...
WERNER HEISENBERG
We're in pretty good shape. They're going to give us a cap number and we'll be ready for it. You alw...
ERNIE ACCORSI
There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
What gets me most about these people, Daddy, isn't how ignorant they are, or how much they drink. It...
KURT VONNEGUT
They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.
KURT VONNEGUT
What occurs to people when they read Kurt [Vonnegut] is that things are much more up for grabs than ...
MARK VONNEGUT
So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinkin...
KURT VONNEGUT
i have no respect for those who are slaves of society and merely accept it. But i can. Yet i will ne...
ARMANDO RODRIGUEZ
i have no respect for those who are slaves of society and merely accept it. But i can. Yet i will ne...
ARMANDO RODRIGUEZ JR
My theory is that Kurt had a lot of residual pain from his childhood. And when you pile that on top ...
CHARLES J. SHIELDS
of being strong and brave. The strong can not be brave. Only the weak can be brave; and yet again, i...
G.K. CHESTERTON
History is not nostalgic art, but history is ibrah, lessons, that we can pull to the present, to pre...
AHMAD FUADI
My favorite book is anything by Kurt Vonnegut - he's my literary hero. I got to meet him several...
STEVEN WRIGHT
One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself.
ORSON SCOTT CARD
It surprises me that we're number one. I'm not as surprised to see us in the top ten, but I see peop...
JEFF WEBER
Surprise is just a paradox. Sometimes it annoys us; sometimes it shakes the tears of joy within us; ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH
Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.
DENIS WAITLEY
History can teach us so much, and yet we seem to learns so little.
ORRIN WOODWARD
I used to feel that if I say something's wrong, I have to say how it could be made right. But wh...
ETGAR KERET
I am a bit of a mother hen at Christmas! I always prepare in advance. It is the only way; otherwise,...
MARY BERRY
The only thing I can do is prepare like he's not going to be there.
GREG JONES
If you take my stuff apart, you'll find my choruses of repetitions are picked up almost verbatim...
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
It is better to be a pragmatist than a lunatic.
DEBASISH MRIDHA
You can call it the watch list, you can call it the select list, you can call it the no-fly list. It...
DONNA MITCHELL
The fantastic breaks the crust of appearance … something grabs us by the shoulders to throw us out...
JULIO CORTáZAR
37. It is better to be single and unhappy than unhappily married.
JAMES C. DOBSON
Only what touches us closely preoccupies us. We prepare in solitude to face it. (The Little Book of ...
EDMOND JABèS
What seems like a flaw is merely our higher consciousness telling us we're not looking at it in the ...
A.J. DARKHOLME
History is merely gossip
OSCAR WILDE
I'd rather be a pessimist because then I can only be pleasantly surprised.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
History has shown that a strong and purposeful America is vital to preserving freedom and keeping us...
DICK CHENEY
Loneliness can't be seen. It's a worse feeling that can only be felt, We experience a lots of feelin...
DEBOLINA BHAWAL
People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of th...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.
Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes.
KURT VONNEGUT
The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy...
KURT VONNEGUT
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and ...
MARY SCHMICH
We take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience... It is true, terrors of consci...
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD
I was surprised, but I always say nothing surprises me in football.
LES FERDINAND
Surprises can be compelling.
CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS
Not yet. But you can bet it's going to be somewhere painful for them, with an extensive wine list.
DR. DREW DOSSETT
Whoever perceives that robots and artificial intelligence are merely here to serve humanity, think a...
ALEX MORRITT
My next option is to only write a list of the books I like, but then again, I don’t read a book I ...
GENESIS QUIHUIS
What can you say except Kurt was awesome? What their defense was giving us was the shot in the corne...
GREG MCKENZIE
From Drew Barrymore to Robert Downey Jr., there's a long list of people who have faced their tro...
CHRIS PINE
It is only education and understanding of the past that teaches us not to repeat history.
EUGENE JARECKI
Kurt was lucky last year, and he was lucky again.
JIMMY SPENCER
I think the writing for this book is extraordinary. And that's why we call it 'Above and Beyond,' be...
ANDREW CARROLL
We knew today was going to be a disaster. What surprises us was how bad it was was.
BILL DREHER
It says here that you can use additional sheets to list your sponsors. We haven't got any yet.
JAMES CRACKNELL
Canada is our country. It belongs to us and we belong to it. Let us join together, in our time, and ...
PAUL MARTIN
I'll be surprised if we get those. Some designers aren't familiar with us yet. ... But we're working...
JANE KACZMAREK
Kurt is going to be the guy.
MARK BARTELSTEIN
Kurt is only 5-foot-10 and rebounded really well.
BILL BELL
Only a completely unintelligible God can be said to be absolutely good and absolutely powerful yet t...
HANS JONAS
We only part to meet again. / Change, as ye list, ye winds; my heart shall be / The faithful compass...
JOHN GAY
I know now: what is is all that matters. Not the thing you know is meant to be, not what could be, n...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive...
ELIZABETH KOSTOVA
The future is a trickster rabbit, full of surprises. Only the past is predictable.
JAMES HOWE
Sometimes in Leominster High School it is very hot in some of our areas. I think if all of us know i...
BILL HART
The things we can do to prepare for any hazard will better prepare us for terrorism.
CRAIG MARKS
Be yourself, be who you can be.
LAILAH GIFTY AKITA
I was really surprised to see my name on the Hermann Trophy watch list, ... I am excited. It is such...
KELLY ROWLAND
A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung...
PETER WESSEL ZAPFFE
We're not surprised that he's on the list. For players to be eligible to play, they have to be on th...
LEE PELEKOUDAS
Reach out and help others. If you have the power to make someone happy, do it. Be a vessel, be the c...
GERMANY KENT
Surely it is foolish to hate facts. The struggle against the past is a futile struggle. Acceptance s...
LEON WIESELTIER
Life is an aggregate of experience, which continually surprises us.
RON CARLSON
I'm not sure how good we would have been without Kurt behind the wheel. We got a little bit behind w...
ROY MCCAULEY
Negation is the mind's first freedom, yet a negative habit is fruitful only so long as we exert ours...
E. M. CIORAN
The future is always coming up with surprises for us, and the best way to insulate yourself from the...
ROBERT J. SHILLER
The history of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the history of the present.
ERNEST DIMNET
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.
OSCAR WILDE
Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it
OSCAR WILDE
Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.
OSCAR WILDE
The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Exp...
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No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our re...
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Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintena...
KURT VONNEGUT JR.

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Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.
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We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.
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I had made her so unhappy that she had developed a sense of humor. [-Rabo Karabekian]
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I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.
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I am committing suicide by cigarette,” I replied. She thought that was reasonably funny. I didn’...
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Don’t give up on books. They feel so good—their friendly heft. The sweet reluctance of their pag...
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I found the words to kill the love, didn't I -" she said, "the love that couldn't be killed?
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His mother understood my illness immediately, that it was my world rather than myself that was disea...
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Most things in this world don´t work, aspirin do.
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No young person on earth is so excellent in all respects as to need no uncritical love.
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People should be changed by world wars," I said, "else what are world wars for?
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Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself -- will say that I have never tampered...
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Oh, God — the lives people try to lead.
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There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, I said, but no good reason ever to hate without reser...
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There are plenty of good reasons for fighting,' I said, 'but no good reason ever to hate without res...
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There is nothing left of him but curiosity and a pair of eyes.
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...this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so inca...
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You hate America, don't you?'

That would be as silly as loving it,' I said. 'It's impossi...
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All people are insane. They will do anything at any time, and God help anybody who looks for reasons...
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Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us hu...
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You know what truth is? [...] It's some crazy thing my neighbor believes. If I want to make friends ...
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Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
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.The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms
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Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion . . . . I myself prefer to laugh...
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.The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms
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A walk?" said Catharine.
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What is my definition of jazz? 'Safe sex of the highest order.
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I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.
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So it goes.
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We are all what we pretend to be, but, we had better be very careful what we pretend.
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About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilitie...
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I'd rather have written 'Cheers' than anything I've written.
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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