...simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions.... A moderately gifted person has to keep his or her gifts all bottled up until, in a manner of speaking, he or she gets drunk at a wedding and tap-dances on the coffee table like Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. We have a name for him or her. We call him or her an "exhibitionist." How do we reward such an exhibitionist? We say to him or her the next morning, "Wow! Were you ever drunk last night!


Kurt Vonnegut

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

Most of us think we're too busy or too important to rest for a day.
CRAIG GROESCHEL
An emotion clamped down on her heart. It squeezed her into a terrible silence. But he said nothing a...
MARIE RUTKOSKI
Harry has heard this before. Thelma's voice is dutiful and deliberately calm, issuing small family t...
JOHN UPDIKE
The very fact that God has placed a certain soul in our way is a sign that God wants us to do someth...
MOTHER TERESA
She has her helmet, shield and sword. Does she finish him or take pity on the gutless thing before h...
DONNA LYNN HOPE
I’ve tried so hard to stay away from you,” he whispered one night, cuddling her while the moonli...
LISA KLEYPAS
All too often, when we love somebody, we don't accept him or her as what the person effectively is. ...
SLAVOJ ŽIžEK
If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comf...
C.S. LEWIS
He smiled at her, and Sophie’s emotions went to war. She had always admired Banallt’s intellect ...
CAROLYN JEWEL
A person's "Success Mechanism" is actually triggered or activated by goals. For example if a busines...
DEVIN BULL
He was not a stranger to her nor was she a stranger to him and I think things like that caused the j...
WILLIAM MURRAY
He was a real man, a person of the community. We could relate to him. You could see him walking down...
EILEEN MORRIS
All of her heart, a meaningless phrase, but correct and precise, too. She used her heart to love him...
CHARLES YU
A boy or girl who has gone through the eight grades should possess a complete, practical education a...
ARTHUR CAPPER
He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on but he still ca...
JAMES JOYCE
When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of he...
MILAN KUNDERA
If our reputation rests on the decisions we make, then Abishag has impeccable taste. If fragrance is...
MICHAEL BEN ZEHABE
Fred started to follow, but Nita caught him in cupped hands, holding him back for a moment. "Fred! D...
DIANE DUANE
A spiritual person is also in touch with his or her own reality, feelings and thoughts, and the real...
KEITH MILLER
It's one thing to have your partner tell you he or she has multiple personalities, and it's another ...
TRACY ALDERMAN
She was in a terrible marriage and she couldn't talk to anyone. He used to hit her, and in the begin...
NICHOLAS SPARKS
Her heart--is given him, with all its love and truth. She would joyfully die with him, or, better th...
CHARLES DICKENS
Find out what your hero or heroine wants, and when he or she wakes up in the morning, just follow hi...
RAY BRADBURY
Find out what your hero or heroine wants, and when he or she wakes up in the morning, just follow hi...
RAY BRADBURY
A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to sup...
PHILIPPA GREGORY
Kiss her. Slowly, take your time, there’s no place you’d rather be. Kiss her but not like you’...
AZRA TABASSUM
Go thou, deceased, to this earth which is a mother, and spacious and kind. May her touch be soft l...
UNATTRIBUTED AUTHOR
As I’ve said, encountering death has a way of jerking your priorities into line.
JAMES C. DOBSON
How to identify a Great person;A great person is not one that has accomplished a great feat alone,bu...
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN)
Help me, Mikey, she wanted to say. I’m afraid. More afraid than you’d ever believe.’ And he’...
JENNY DOWNHAM
A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her and who is o...
MELODY BEATTIE
An intellectual person is always confident about his or her own words when he or she communicates wi...
SAAIF ALAM
Becca has stepped it up all year. She has been a big defensive force for us all year and we look to ...
ELLIE RADKE
He knows no other way but ugliness,” Sir Topher said quietly. “He was taught no other lessons bu...
MELINA MARCHETTA
When a man modifies or adorns a woman's name, or dispatches an endearment into her vicinity, he is a...
BEN MARCUS
To be right, a person must do one of two things: either he must learn to have God in his work and ho...
MEISTER ECKHART
The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or h...
A.J. JACOBS
We really have to reconsider what it is that a public person gives up. Why does a public person give...
DAVID DUCHOVNY
Anyways, that very same night there was a fight in the casino on B Deck. Some of the passengers got ...
CHRISTINA ENGELA
A person is likely to be better than others if he or she seeks all qualities of his or her character...
ANUJ SOMANY
Or perhaps a widow found him and took him in: brought him an easy chair, changed his sweater every m...
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER
He wondered how it could have taken him so long to realize how much he cared for her, and he told he...
NEIL GAIMAN
The multicolored kitten snuggled between her breasts.

Lucky cat.

"I thought ma...
CANDIS TERRY
We didn't get into it, other than she was concerned about Rick and she felt that it was a tough situ...
WAYNE GRETZKY
Her parents could have named her Aria, or Harmonia, or Tessitura, or a hundred other clever names th...
ADI RULE
Amy will pitch 50 percent or more of our innings. Her pitches have been sharp and she has built her ...
KATHY ARENDSEN
Sometimes Coraline would forget who she was while she was daydreaming that she was exploring the Arc...
NEIL GAIMAN
Guilt is an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes that he or she has c...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA
Music is the one art we all have inside. We may not be able to play an instrument, but we can sing a...
FRED ROGERS
Curran's whore comes to visit us," Jarek said in accented English.

The three men laughed ...
ILONA ANDREWS
Almost every day, for years now, he has taken pen in hand to write to her. He has no names or addres...
ALESSANDRO BARICCO
He had been violently confused by her real presence in the opposite inaccessible corner. For months ...
A.S. BYATT
We have wanted Katie at Quinnipiac since the moment we saw her compete in her junior year at the Nat...
BECCA KOHLI
We would like to have students and other engineers exercise and operate the spacecraft after the bio...
BRUCE YOST
We would like to have students and other engineers exercise and operate the spacecraft after the bio...
BRUCE YOST
She bit the inside of her cheek. “You wouldn’t keep secrets from me, would you? I mean we’ve b...
VICTORIA ESCOBAR
The Warrior Woman Code:

A confident woman doesn't beg a man to stay, cry if they don't or...
SHANNON L. ALDER
In the name of freedom, there has to be a correlation between rights and duties, by which every pers...
POPE BENEDICT XVI
It has been a weird or wicked practice in almost all private organizations to not give even X remune...
ANUJ SOMANY
She suddenly understood why she had let him kiss her in the diner, why she had wanted him at all. HOLLY BLACK you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry
DALE CARNEGIE
He has been disassembled by her. And if she has brought him to this, what has he brought her to?
MICHAEL ONDAATJE
She didn’t know how long they stood on that roof, tangled up in each other, mouths and hands rovin...
SARAH J. MAAS
A REAL man, the kind of man a woman wants to give her life to, is one who will respect her dignity, ...
LESLIE LUDY
A person who could withstand such dreadful insults from his or her enemies can have the ability to r...
SAAIF ALAM
She knew she was in love with him. She loved everything about him too. He was more than a fantasy. F...
DEBORAH ARMSTRONG
Lady Luck has been good to me and I fancy she has been good to everyone. Only some people are dour, ...
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
He never should have left the island. He’d been there with Diana and Penny. He could have tossed P...
MICHAEL GRANT
The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or h...
A. J. JACOBS
And do these objectors mean to say that, because God has redeemed us from the curse of the law, ther...
HORATIUS BONAR
IN ALL UNEQUAL relationships, those lacking a name or explicit recognition, there is usually one per...
JAVIER MARíAS
Sister," he murmured, not as an inquiry, but a statement of fact. "Brother mine," she groaned... bef...
J.R. WARD
The terrifying fear of a crash had triggered the fight-or-flight response in the child, making him b...
PAWAN MISHRA
A good golfer’s métier is his or her golfing skill.

A great golfer’s métier is his ...
LORII MYERS
For two thousand years or more man has been subjected to a systematic effort to transform him into a...
NORMAN O. BROWN
Our motive for obedience is just as important, probably more so, to God than the level of our perfor...
JERRY BRIDGES
We cannot let another person into our hearts or minds unless we empty ourselves. We can truly listen...
M. SCOTT PECK
She knows her job; I just tried to keep her as fresh as possible. We still have to monitor her daily...
LAUREN HOUGH
She did understand, or at least she understood that she was supposed to understand. She understood, ...
MARGARET ATWOOD
You could see the signs of female aging as diseased, especially if you had a vested interest in maki...
NAOMI WOLF
You never have a comedian who hasn't got a very deep strain of sadness within him or her. Every ...
MARGARET RUTHERFORD
Then I saw an article about Mr. [Larry] Dodson. So I decided to take my chances and call him. He tol...
GRACE ANDREWS
We would like to have students and other engineers exercise and operate the spacecraft after the bio...
BRUCE YOST
A person today who seems to have a great sense of self-esteem has his or her childhood days to thank...
STEPHEN RICHARDS
His hands tightened on her shoulders as the truth washed over him. My God, she really had told him y...
CAROLYN JEWEL
We feel he has been living on borrowed time for about 32 years, or whatever it was, and we were happ...
LARRY MEYERS
«Brixie wasn’t talking to him, or listening to him. Nothing like that at all. Brixie was off in h...
BRUCE STERLING
Instead of either/or, I discovered a whole world of and.
GLORIA STEINEM
If a woman is flourishing in her home and glorifying God while rejoicing in her domestic duties, and...
NANCY WILSON
Spontaneously, we decided to help her, which was outside the scope of what we normally do. We give s...
ANTHONY GRACEFFO
Today's woman doesn't have emotional or financial security. She has to go out and compete within a h...
BARBARA FELDON
Chelsea is a very good change of pace and has the potential to cause some problems for people out on...
CHRIS KOUNS
He would not kiss her mouth or allow her to caress him in tenderness. He broke his fierce silence on...
TERESA MEDEIROS
Did she say anything before she died?" he asked.
"Yes," the surgeon said. "She said, 'Forgive h...
SHERMAN ALEXIE
If a couple has their picture taken at a wedding or other social gathering, and the woman looks hot,...
BRIAN P. CLEARY
Now in India, a village boy who has worked his way up to work at a call center, or if he gets a job ...
MARIE BRENNER
I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib...
C. JOYBELL C.
She turned to go back inside the livery stable. The excitement with which she’d
entered it le...
BONNIE DEE
But I'd do it again. I know that now. I'd make that promise a thousand times over and lose her a tho...
GAYLE FORMAN
She hated him for all her might. She hated him for leaving her all those years ago, she hated him fo...
DIYAR HARRAZ

More Kurt Vonnegut

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
We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.
KURT VONNEGUT
There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of ...
KURT VONNEGUT
I think a lot of people, including me, clammed up when a civilian asked about battle, about war. It ...
KURT VONNEGUT
There is never a shortage anywhere of lawyers eager to attack the First Amendment, as though it were...
KURT VONNEGUT
I now make my living by being impolite. I am clumsy at it.
KURT VONNEGUT
If you appear in the 'Atlantic' or 'Harper's' or the 'New Yorker,' by Go...
KURT VONNEGUT
It is a big temptation to me, when I create a character for a novel, to say that he is what he is be...
KURT VONNEGUT
About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilitie...
KURT VONNEGUT
It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wro...
KURT VONNEGUT
I am honorary President of the American Humanist Society, having succeeded the late, great science f...
KURT VONNEGUT
This is Sunday, and the question arises, what'll I start tomorrow?
KURT VONNEGUT
Evolution can go to hell as far as I am concerned. What a mistake we are. We have mortally wounded t...
KURT VONNEGUT
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Pra...
KURT VONNEGUT
I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment ...
KURT VONNEGUT
I think big business is a terrible thing for the spirit of the country, as our spirit is the best th...
KURT VONNEGUT
When I'm being funny, I try not to offend. I don't think much of what I've done has been...
KURT VONNEGUT
The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very muc...
KURT VONNEGUT
Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. -Kurt Vonnegut.
KURT VONNEGUT
People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.
KURT VONNEGUT
I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a...
KURT VONNEGUT
I was a chemistry major, but I'm always winding up as a teacher in English departments, so I'...
KURT VONNEGUT
I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.
KURT VONNEGUT
Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
KURT VONNEGUT
I can have oodles of charm when I want to.
KURT VONNEGUT
Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the char...
KURT VONNEGUT
The chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe,...
KURT VONNEGUT
New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the rich...
KURT VONNEGUT
1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began l...
KURT VONNEGUT
I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresente...
KURT VONNEGUT
Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.
KURT VONNEGUT
Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite herma...
KURT VONNEGUT
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. Th...
KURT VONNEGUT
Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either...
KURT VONNEGUT
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have ...
KURT VONNEGUT
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than befo...
KURT VONNEGUT
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
KURT VONNEGUT
Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terri...
KURT VONNEGUT
Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but...
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
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than befo...
KURT VONNEGUT
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person...
KURT VONNEGUT
I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at le...
KURT VONNEGUT
I am eternally grateful.. for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, rea...
KURT VONNEGUT
How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
KURT VONNEGUT
All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It si...
KURT VONNEGUT
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in ...
KURT VONNEGUT
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
KURT VONNEGUT
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to co...
KURT VONNEGUT
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
KURT VONNEGUT
Well, the telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The...
KURT VONNEGUT
During my three years in Vietnam, I certainly heard plenty of last words by dying American footsoldi...
KURT VONNEGUT
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintena...
KURT VONNEGUT
Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to ...
KURT VONNEGUT
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remed...
KURT VONNEGUT
I want to congratulate librarians,...who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democr...
KURT VONNEGUT
I'm screamingly funny, you know, I really am in the books. And that helps because I'm funnie...
KURT VONNEGUT
Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God.
KURT VONNEGUT
I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.
KURT VONNEGUT
All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It si...
KURT VONNEGUT
Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudic...
KURT VONNEGUT
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.
KURT VONNEGUT
The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet...
KURT VONNEGUT
Science sent the Hubble telescope out into space, so it could capture light and the absence thereof,...
KURT VONNEGUT
As a Humanist, I love science. I hate superstition, which could never have given us A-bombs.
KURT VONNEGUT
The statue was of a nude woman playing a slide trombone. It was entitles, enigmatically, Evelyn and ...
KURT VONNEGUT
I consider anybody a twerp who hasn't read 'Democracy in America' by Alexis de Tocquevil...
KURT VONNEGUT
Younger scientists are extremely sensitive to the moral implications of all they do.
KURT VONNEGUT
All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old...
KURT VONNEGUT
To be is to do - Socrates

To do is to be - Sartre

Do Be Do Be Do - Sinatra
KURT VONNEGUT
Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet an...
KURT VONNEGUT
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
But I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era in history, including the Gard...
KURT VONNEGUT
And I apologize to all of you who are the same age as my grandchildren. And many of you reading this...
KURT VONNEGUT
Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly better then no drugs at all.
KURT VONNEGUT
Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautifu...
KURT VONNEGUT
If you actually are an educated, thinking person, you will not be welcome in Washington, D.C. I know...
KURT VONNEGUT
Only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed peopl...
KURT VONNEGUT
Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. ...
KURT VONNEGUT
Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity." Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin a...
KURT VONNEGUT
I don't reveal to her that I love her. I keep poker faced. She might as well be looking at a cantalo...
KURT VONNEGUT
The biggest truth to face now – what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my lif...
KURT VONNEGUT
When a couple has an argument nowadays they may think it s about money or power or sex or how to rai...
KURT VONNEGUT
I was once asked if I had any ideas for a really scary reality TV show. I have one reality show that...
KURT VONNEGUT
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds ...
KURT VONNEGUT
Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough...
KURT VONNEGUT
So I went to New York City to be born again. It was and remains easy for most Americans to go somewh...
KURT VONNEGUT
That is how you get to be a writer, incidentally: you feel somehow marginal, somehow slightly off-ba...
KURT VONNEGUT
The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybod...
KURT VONNEGUT
Until you die .. it's all life.
KURT VONNEGUT
Round and round we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin.
KURT VONNEGUT
We could have saved [the Earth] but we were too damned cheap.
KURT VONNEGUT
All right - I'll tell you what you did for me: you went for happy, silly, beautiful walks with me.
KURT VONNEGUT
You can't just eat good food. You've got to talk about it too. And you've got to talk about it to so...
KURT VONNEGUT
Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.
KURT VONNEGUT
And so it goes...
KURT VONNEGUT
It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be...
KURT VONNEGUT
So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinkin...
KURT VONNEGUT
I am from a family of artists. Here I am, making a living in the arts. It has not been a rebellion. ...
KURT VONNEGUT
If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE...
KURT VONNEGUT
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, o...
KURT VONNEGUT
The fortifications have never been attacked, nor has any sane man ever proposed any reason why they ...
KURT VONNEGUT
Bertrand Russell declared that, in case he met God, he would say to Him, "Sir, you did not give us e...
KURT VONNEGUT
Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live ration...
KURT VONNEGUT
The most radical, audacious thing to think is that there might be some point to working hard and thi...
KURT VONNEGUT
Fear hadn’t come to him yet. Pain hadn’t come where pain would come. There was only the feeling ...
KURT VONNEGUT
And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.
KURT VONNEGUT
I still catch myself feeling blue about things that don't matter anymore.
KURT VONNEGUT
There was a still life on Billy's bedside table-two pills, an ashtray with three lipstick-stained ci...
KURT VONNEGUT
The book was Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension, by Kilgore Trout. It was about people whose mental dis...
KURT VONNEGUT
There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Broth...
KURT VONNEGUT
All this happened, more or less.
KURT VONNEGUT
Here's the news: I am going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall...
KURT VONNEGUT
Only in books do we learn what’s really going on.
KURT VONNEGUT
The truth is, we know so little about life, we don't really know what the good news is and what the ...
KURT VONNEGUT
Life is no way to treat an animal.
KURT VONNEGUT
A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shockingly indecent society.
KURT VONNEGUT
To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.
KURT VONNEGUT
In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which tho...
KURT VONNEGUT
I wanted all things
To seem to make some sense,
So we could all be happy, yes,
Instea...
KURT VONNEGUT
Here is a lesson in creative writing.

First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transve...
KURT VONNEGUT
Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn't...
KURT VONNEGUT
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
KURT VONNEGUT
And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'I...
KURT VONNEGUT
Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got t...
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
All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.
KURT VONNEGUT
Live by the foma* that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.

*Harmless untruths
KURT VONNEGUT
profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their ears and...
KURT VONNEGUT
Sometimes I think that's the trouble with the world: too many people in high places who are stone-co...
KURT VONNEGUT
One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or...
KURT VONNEGUT
The church, which squatted among the headstones like a wet mother dodo, had been at various times Pr...
KURT VONNEGUT
This person has just arrived on this planet, knows nothing about it, has no standards by which to ju...
KURT VONNEGUT
My advice to writers just starting out? Don't use semi-colons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites,...
KURT VONNEGUT
People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.
KURT VONNEGUT
Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism; Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism ...
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
This is a beguiling book,
KURT VONNEGUT
and I'm whistling as beautifully as I can.
KURT VONNEGUT
Here is the solution to the American drug problem suggested a couple years back by the wife of our P...
KURT VONNEGUT
The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.
KURT VONNEGUT
The human beings also passed canteens, which guards would fill with water. When food came in, the hu...
KURT VONNEGUT
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as gla...
KURT VONNEGUT
Well, I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the...
KURT VONNEGUT
I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it's unscie...
KURT VONNEGUT
The troops and their ladies had first drunk champagne. There were also remains of sandwiches, and I ...
KURT VONNEGUT
Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It m...
KURT VONNEGUT
It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.
KURT VONNEGUT
I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagian...
KURT VONNEGUT
Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over...
KURT VONNEGUT
The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless...
KURT VONNEGUT
Don't worry about your father. He's a perfectly contented, self-sufficient zombie.
KURT VONNEGUT
How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
KURT VONNEGUT
If you can do no good, at least do no harm.
KURT VONNEGUT
Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, sh...
KURT VONNEGUT
There are no telegraphs on Tralfamadore. But you're right: each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent ...
KURT VONNEGUT
Unfortunately, that still leaves plenty of Americans who don't read much or think much -- who will s...
KURT VONNEGUT