That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?'
'Yes' Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.
'Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.


Kurt Vonnegut

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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