Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

My ancient history teacher, Millie Lloyd, should have worn a medal for her performance at the battle of Thermopylae. She was excited and we were excited.

People who were so good. There were angels.

My ancestors came over from Germany about the time of the Civil War and one of them lost a leg and went back to Germany.

Jack Benny, Fred Allen. Their jokes were wonderful. It takes skill to be funny. The timing of Jack Benny was so fine. It is a form of genius for which we should be grateful.

There's almost nothing like native Midwesterner anywhere else in the world, except in Asia. They're miracles all in themselves.

Social class means a hell of a lot and upper class people - no matter how well [Franklin ] Roosevelt did - it was stylish to hate him.

My definition of a man's man is a man who knows gun safety, and we all did.

I learned how to make jokes because I wanted to give people as much fun as they did, and I guess I did, too.

It seems to me divorce is so common now. It ought to be more institutionalized. It's like a head-on collision every time. It's supposed to be a surprise but it's commonplace.

I've been drawing all my life, just as a hobby, without really having shows or anything. It's just an agreeable thing to do, and I recommend it to everybody.

I myself grew up when radio was very important. I'd come home from school and turn on the radio. There were funny comedians and wonderful music, and there were plays. I used to pass time with radio.

Every writer has to write his speech.

Literature is by definition opinionated. It is bound to provoke the arguments in many quarters, not excluding the hometown or even the family of the author.

One of the things I'm going to say out there is how grateful I am - and how grateful the world is - for the tremendous gift of the black people, of jazz.

We used to have superb public schools. I guess we don't anymore, but, boy, the public schools were really something and I am a product of those in Indianapolis.

Our classes were relatively small. Those small classes can feel like family. After a class in French or chemistry or whatever, we'd be talking in the halls about what we just learned.

I was hoping to build a country and add to its literature. That's why I served in World War II, and that's why I wrote books.

What everybody is well advised to do is to not write about your own life, this is if you want to write fast. You will be writing about your own life anyway but you won't know it.

Where you can see tribal behavior now is in this business about teaching evolution in a science class and intelligent design. It's the scientists themselves are behaving tribally.

You know who was a hero? Franklin Roosevelt.

It was headquartered in Michigan City, a long way off. I never saw Ku Klux Klan march.

We were all gun nuts and they were called varmints, crows were, because they ate grain and so did we.

George Bush and his gang imagine they are being political geniuses.

Well, we are terribly divided politically, yes, and, you know, I don't mean to intimidate you and your listeners but I have a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago.

Homo-Americanus is going to go on speaking and writing the way he always has, no matter what dictionary he owns.

If somebody says 'I love you' to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol holder requires? 'I love you, too'.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDEDFOR THE EXISTENCE OF GODWAS MUSIC

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana)I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning do to do afterward.

To be is to do - SocratesTo do is to be - SartreDo Be Do Be Do - Sinatra

I speak gibberish to the civilized world and it replies in kind.

Nothing is generous. New knowledge is a valuable commodity. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we are.

I wanted all thingsTo seem to make some sense, So we could all be happy, yes, Instead of tense.And I made up liesSo that they all fit nice, And I made this sad worldA par-a-dise.

My advice to writers just starting out? Don't use semi-colons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college.

Whenever I ask a question, and the pain comes, I know I have asked a really good question.

Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because the moment simply is.

By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This is to me is a miracle.

Or they'll talk about fear, which we used to call politics- job politics, social politics, government politics

Sordid things, for the most part, are what make human beings, my father included, move. That's what it is to be human, I'm afraid.

That’s the attractive thing about war, ” said Rosewater. “Absolutely everybody gets a little something.

The human beings also passed canteens, which guards would fill with water. When food came in, the human beings were quiet and trusting and beautiful. They shared.

The name of the new religion, " said Rumfoord, "is The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent.

Mister, when I see my first lady angel, if God ever sees fit to show me one, it’ll be her wings not her face that’ll make my mouth fall open. I’ve already seen the prettiest face that ever could be.

Their beauty was to the beauty of Miss Canal Zone as the glory of the Sun was to the glory of a lightning bug.

That's what attracts us to serious paintings, I think: that shortfall, which we might call "personality", or maybe even "pain".

...a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit.

what you respond to in any work of art is the artist's struggle against his or her limitations

She turned to examine Dr. Breed, looking at him with helpless reproach. She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.

If people think nature is their friend then they sure don't need an enemy.