Kurt Vonnegut idézet

oldal 10

„Az emberi lét célja, függetlenül attól, ki befolyásolja: szeretni, akiket szeretnünk kell.”

„Az amerikai gyermekek tanítói újra meg újra fölírták ezt a dátumot a táblákra, és felszólították a gyermekeket, hogy büszkeséggel és örömmel véssék az eszükbe:
1492
A tanítók azt mondták a gyermekeknek, hogy a földrészüket ekkor fedezték föl az emberi lények. A valóságban 1492-ben már emberi lények milliói éltek tartalmas és fantáziadús életet a földrészen. 1492 csak az az év volt, amikor a tengeri rablók elkezdték becsapni, kirabolni és megölni őket.”

„Amikor a dolgok már nem is állhatnának rosszabbul, nevetni kell rajtuk, mert különben mindent elnyel a kétségbeesés.”

„Azok vagyunk, aminek kiadjunk magunkat, így hát vigyáznunk kell, minek adjuk ki magunkat.”

„A lélek az a részed, amely rögtön észreveszi, ha az agyad nem úgy működik, ahogy kellene.”

„Avégből születtünk erre a világra, hogy ökörködjünk. Nehogy elhiggyék az ellenkezőjét!”

„Van az Eredetiségnek három szép leánya is, ők tehát a Reménytelenség unokái. Sorrendben: Remény, Másik Iránti Hála és Rendíthetetlen Önérzet.”

„Nehéz a káoszhoz alkalmazkodni, de nem megoldhatatlan. Magam vagyok rá az élő példa.”

„A skatulyát sokan összetévesztik a klozettal.”

„Az evolúció felőlem elmehet a pokolba. Hatalmas tévedés vagyunk. Egyetlen évszázadnyi közlekedési őrjöngéssel halálos sebet ejtettünk ezen a kedves, életadó bolygón – az egyetlenen az egész Tejúton. A kormány hadat visel a drogok ellen, nem igaz? Akkor menjen neki a kőolajnak is! Beszéljen arról, milyen káros a kőolaj bódulata! Ez aztán a káros bódulat! Ha tankolunk egy keveset az autónkba, akár száz mérföldet is megtehetünk óránként, elüthetjük a szomszéd kutyáját, és a cafatokra téphetjük a légkört.”

„A kudarc és kimerültség sírást és nevetést egyaránt kiválthat belőlünk. A magam részéről inkább nevetek, mert így nincs szükségem zsebkendőre.”

„Az emberiség a Világmindenség központja. Vagy valóra váltja, vagy meghiúsítja a Mindenható legszebb álmait.”

„Cégünknél dolgozott egy Ronald Reagan nevezetű lerobbant moziszínész is. Ez az illető folyton előadó körúton volt. Kereskedelmi kamaráknál, energiaszolgáltató trösztöknél, efféléknél a szocializmus gonoszságáról értekezett. Soha nem találkoztam vele, ezért megmaradtam szocialistának.”

„A legfontosabb dolog, amit a Tralfamadore-on megtanultam, hogy amikor valaki meghal, csak látszólag hal meg.”

“Here lies Howard Campbell’s essence,
Freed from his body’s noisome nuisance.
His body, empty, prowls the earth,
Earning what a body’s worth.
If his body and his essence remain apart,
Burn his body, but spare this, his heart.”

““Why are you quitting?”
“Sick of my job.”
“Because what you were doing was morally bad?” suggested the voice.
“Because it wasn’t getting anybody anywhere. Because it was getting everybody nowhere.”
“Because it was evil?” insisted the voice.
“Because it was pointless.””

““I liked him very much,” said Constant.
“The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms,” said Beatrice.”

“Why so many of us a million years ago purposely knocked out major chunks of our brains with alcohol from time to time remains an interesting mystery. It may be we were trying to give evolution a shove in the right direction — in the direction of smaller brains.”

“We don't piss in your ashtrays,
So please don't throw cigarettes in our urinals.”

“How embarrassing to be human.”

““The hell with the human race!” said Beatrice.
“You’re a member of it, you know,” said Rumfoord.
“Then I’d like to put in for a transfer to the chimpanzees!” said Beatrice. “No chimpanzee husband would stand by while his wife lost all her coconuts.””

“These displaced people need something, and the clergy can’t give it to them—or it’s impossible for them to take what the clergy offers. The clergy says it’s enough, and so does the Bible. The people say it isn’t enough, and I suspect they’re right.”

“We could have saved the earth, but we were too damned cheap.”

“Like most science-fiction writers, Trout knew almost nothing about science.”

“One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.”

“The highest treason in the USA is to say Americans are not loved, no matter where they are, no matter what they are doing there.”

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.”

“Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants.”

“[Vietnam] only made billionaires out of millionaires. [Iraq] is making trillionaires out of billionaires. Now I call that progress.”

“I tell you, Mr. Constant,” he said genially, “it’s a thankless job, telling people it’s a hard, hard Universe they’re in.”

“My father said "When in doubt, castle."”

“Literature is idiosyncratic arrangements in horizontal lines in only twenty-six symbols, ten arabic numbers, and about eight punctuation marks.”

“Many people found our house spooky, and the attic in fact as full of evil when I was born. It housed a collection of more than three hundred antique and modern firearms. Father had bought them during his and Mother's six-month honeymoon in Europe in 1922. Father thought them beautiful, but they might as well have been copperheads and rattlesnakes. They were murder.”

“His plan? To pass out weapons to slaves, so they could overthrow their masters. Suicide.”

“Mankind, ignorant of the truths that lie withing every human being, looked outward—pushed ever outward. What mankind hoped to learn in its outward push was who was actually in charge of all creation, and what all creation was all about.”

“Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.”

“His poor soul was flooded with pleasure as he realized that one friend was all that a man needed in order to be well-supplied with friendship.”

“The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.”

“About astrology and palmistry: They are good because they make people feel vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.”

“There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It’s that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.”

“A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees.”

“There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.”

“Listen:
The waitress brought me another drink. She wanted to light my hurricane lamp again. I wouldn't let her. "Can you see anything in the dark, with your sunglasses on?" she asked me.
"The big show is inside my head," I said”