Kurt Vonnegut: Trending quotes (page 9)

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Kurt Vonnegut: 636   quotes 348   likes

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Palm Sunday

"Thoughts of a Free Thinker", commencement address, Hobart and William Smith Colleges (26 May 1974)
Palm Sunday (1981)

People , Disease , Communication , Loneliness

“I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Palm Sunday

"Self-Interview", originally appeared in The Paris Review no. 69 (1977)
Palm Sunday (1981)

History , Literature , Thinking

“And now I want to tell you about my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

Life , Drink , Thinking , Tree

“"I can't help it," I said. "My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps right on doing bad, dumb things."
"You and your what?" he said.
"My soul and my meat," I said.
"They're separate?" he said.
"I sure hope they are," I said. I laughed. "I would hate to be responsible for what my meat does."”

Kurt Vonnegut book Bluebeard

Source: Bluebeard (1987), p. 246

Hate , Hope , Soul , Help

“The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”

Kurt Vonnegut

Paragraph 1 (p. 7 of Welcome to the Monkey House)
Welcome to the Monkey House (1968), "Harrison Bergeron" (1961)

God , Law , Way

“You are pooped and demoralized. Why wouldn't you be? Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Universe , Time

“If God were alive today, he would have to be an atheist, because the excrement has hit the air-conditioning big time, big time.”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

God , Time

“We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

“And as Paul said these things to himself, a wave of sadness washed over them as though they’d been written in sand. He was understanding now that no man could live without roots—roots in a patch of desert, a red clay field, a mountain slope, a rocky coast, a city street. In black loan, in mud or sand or rock or asphalt or carpet, every man had his roots down deep—in home.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 23 (p. 227)

Sadness , Home , Mountain , Understanding

“He was too good a soldier to go around asking questions, trying to round out his knowledge.
A soldier’s knowledge wasn’t supposed to be round.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 5 “Letter From an Unknown Hero” (p. 120)

Question , Knowledge

“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.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Bluebeard

Source: Bluebeard (1987), p. 91, referring to George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

Past

“This theory argues that artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are supersensitive. They keel over like canaries in coal mines filled with poison gas, long before more robust types realize that any danger is there.”

Kurt Vonnegut

Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (1974)

“Derby described the incredible artificial weather that Earthlings sometimes create for other Earthlings when they don't want those other Earthlings to inhabit Earth any more.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

Weather

“The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected.”

Kurt Vonnegut

As quoted in "Kurt Vonnegut's 'Stardust Memory'" http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2006/1326 by Harvey Wasserman in The Free Press (4 March 2006); in actuality, Hitler also wasn't elected by a clear majority vote. Although the Nazi Party was elected to the largest number of seats in the Reichstag, it did not have a majority, and could only form a government through a coalition. Eventually, Hitler was appointed as Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg, and used that position as leverage to gain dictatorial powers.
Various interviews

“O Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagnetic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia—what could we do for Thee that Thou couldst not do for Thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest Thee? Nothing. Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our Creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool like Malachi Constant point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say, ‘Somebody up there likes me.’ And no longer can a tyrant say, ‘God wants this or that to happen, and anybody who doesn’t help this or that to happen is against God.’ O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain!”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 10 “An Age of Miracles” (p. 215; epigram)

God , Truth , Fools , Soul

“My theory is that all women have hydrofluoric acid bottled up inside.”

Kurt Vonnegut

On difficulties with women, as quoted in "Kurt Vonnegut, Writer of Classics of the American Counterculture, Dies at 84" by Dinitia Smith in The New York Times (11 April 2007) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/books/11cnd-vonnegut.html
Various interviews

Women

“Wars would be a lot better, I think, if guys would say to themselves sometimes "Jesus — I'm not going to do that to the enemy. That's too much."”

Kurt Vonnegut Happy Birthday, Wanda June

"Col. Looseleaf Harper"
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)

War , Guy , Thinking