The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Exp...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our re...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintena...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physica...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of th...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. The darkest secret of this country, I am afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. You know — we've had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by agi...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than bef...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. To pay homage to beauty is to admire Nature; to admire Nature is to worship God
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. God damn it, you've got to be kind.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, o...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Her pleasure went on and on, and so did Ben's. Ben could almost smell the gardenia, could almost see...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled "science fiction" ... and I would like ou...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at le...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. He tried. That's the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should g...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Nothing ever really ends. That’s the horrible part of being in the short-story business—you have...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work bet...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thin...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remed...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to reme...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. I had made her so unhappy that she had developed a sense of humor. [-Rabo Karabekian]
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I am committing suicide by cigarette,” I replied. She thought that was reasonably funny. I didn’...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Anyone unable to understand how useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Don’t give up on books. They feel so good—their friendly heft. The sweet reluctance of their pag...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I found the words to kill the love, didn't I -" she said, "the love that couldn't be killed?
KURT VONNEGUT JR. His mother understood my illness immediately, that it was my world rather than myself that was disea...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I froze. It was not guilt that froze me. I had taught myself never to feel guilt. It was not a ghast...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. So I am about to be a free man again, to wander where I please.
I find the prospect nauseating....
KURT VONNEGUT JR. What can any one person do?' he said.
'Each person does a little something,' I said, 'and there...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings, lest they grow up expecting peace a...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I had hoped, as a broadcaster, to be merely ludicrous, but this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. No young person on earth is so excellent in all respects as to need no uncritical love.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. People should be changed by world wars," I said, "else what are world wars for?
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself -- will say that I have never tampered...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I saw a huge steam roller,
It blotted out the sun.
The people all lay down, lay down; KURT VONNEGUT JR. I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be linke...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Society is more concerned with material possessions than it is with the true love and compassion of ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. The New York Daily News suggested that my biggest war crime was not killing myself like a gentleman....
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Oh, God — the lives people try to lead.
Oh, God — what a world they try to lead them in.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, I said, but no good reason ever to hate without reser...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. There are plenty of good reasons for fighting,' I said, 'but no good reason ever to hate without res...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I love you, because the love you gave me was the only love I've ever had, the only love I ever will ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. There is nothing left of him but curiosity and a pair of eyes.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. ...this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so inca...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. You hate America, don't you?'

That would be as silly as loving it,' I said. 'It's impossi...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. All people are insane. They will do anything at any time, and God help anybody who looks for reasons...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. There are plenty of good reasons for fighting...but no good reason to ever hate without reservation,...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love.<...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. We'd been apart so long--I'd been dead so long," she said in English. "I thought surely you'd built ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terri...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I felt after I finished Slaughterhouse-Five that I didn’t have to write at all anymore if I didn�...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around ...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are ur...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresente...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thin...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people be...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us hu...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. You know what truth is? [...] It's some crazy thing my neighbor believes. If I want to make friends ...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. .The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion . . . . I myself prefer to lau...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion . . . . I myself prefer to laugh...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. .The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms
KURT VONNEGUT JR. A walk?" said Catharine.
"One foot in front of the other," said Newt, "through leaves, over bri...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. What is my definition of jazz? 'Safe sex of the highest order.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. The only difference between KURT VONNEGUT JR. We are impossibly conceited animals, and actually dumb as heck. Ask any teacher. You don't even have...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. There's only one me, and I'm stuck with him.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintena...
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. How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to con...
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. We are what we imagine ourselves to be.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. 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, JR. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. So it goes.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. We are all what we pretend to be, but, we had better be very careful what we pretend.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilitie...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I am of course a skeptic about the divinity of Christ and a scorner of the notion that there is a Go...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction if you are not depressed
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Suicide is the punctuation mark at the end of many artistic careers
KURT VONNEGUT JR. A Lovers a liar, to himself he lies. The truthful are loveless, like oysters their eyes
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Men are jerks. Women are psychotic.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to con...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Unexpected travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remed...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. So it goes.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Make love when you can. It's good for you.
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion . . . . I myself prefer to laugh...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us hu...
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. Well, to admire the hell out of Jesus Christ or of everyone who speaks well. And, well my grandfathe...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. We would have said the Nazis were evil in any event, since we had decided to fight them. This has al...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. It posed the question posed by all such stone piles: how had puny men moved stones so big? And, like...
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