“My wife has been killed by a machine which should never have come into the hands of any human being. It is called a firearm. It makes the blackest of all human wishes come true at once, at a distance: that something die. There is evil for you. We cannot get rid of mankind's fleetingly evil wishes. We can get rid of the machines that make them come true. I give you a holy word: DISARM.”

— Kurt Vonnegut , book Deadeye Dick

Statement of the husband of the woman killed in the accident
Deadeye Dick (1982)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

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Kurt Vonnegut 318

American writer 1922–2007

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

NOW interview (2004)
Context: You can't get rid of evil. We can't, and I feel that so intensely. All the idiots that keep coming into the world and wrecking people's lives.
And it is such an abundance of idiocy that you lose courage, okay? That you lose hope — I don't want to lose hope. I get through every day — I'm pretty good — I work. I sleep. I sing. I walk. But, I'm losing hope.

“Be you wise and never sad,
You will get your lovely lad.
Never serious be, nor true,
And your wish will come to you--
And if that makes you happy, kid,
You'll be the first it ever did.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“I can but entreat you to remember it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.”

James Branch Cabell book The Cream of the Jest

"Richard Fentnor Harroby" in Ch. 1 : Pallation of the Gambit
The Cream of the Jest (1917)
Context: I also begin where he began, and follow wither the dream led him. Meanwhile, I can but entreat you to remember it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.

“Opportunities and choices. When a person makes a heart wish, that wish resonates through the currents and things will happen to give the person an opportunity to make the wish come true. Like a hand offered and accepted.”

Anne Bishop book Sebastian

Source: Sebastian

“For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything as you come across--hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

“You can have true affection for only a few things in your life, and by getting rid of material things, I make sure I won't waste mine on something that can't feel my affection.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Pt. 2, Ch. 5
Papa Hemingway (1966)

“Wherever we turn we find that the real obstacles to peace are human will and feeling, human convictions, prejudices, opinions. If we want to get rid of war we must get rid first of all of its psychological causes. Only when this has been done will the rulers of the nations even desire to get rid of the economic and political causes.”

Aldous Huxley book Ends and Means

Ends and Means (1937)

“We have too many cellphones. We've got too many Internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

"Ray Bradbury hates big government: ‘Our country is in need of a revolution’" in The Los Angeles Times : Hero Complex (16 August 2010) http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/08/16/ray-bradbury-is-sick-of-big-government-our-country-is-in-need-of-a-revolution/

“Suppose it is said that there are evil spirits: — if they have their power from the Gods, they cannot be evil; if from elsewhere, the Gods do not make all things. If they do not make all things, then either they wish to or cannot, or they can and do not wish; neither of which is consistent with the idea of god. We may see, therefore, from these arguments, that there is no positive evil in the world.
It is in the activities of men that the evils appear, and that not of all men nor always.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

“Well, if Evolution is true […] you’re just a bit of protoplasm that washed up on the beach. Matter of fact, you’re part of the problem because you’re one of the polluters of the environment and the more of you we can get rid of, the better. And by the way folks, if Evolution is true, that is normal thinking. Get rid of humanity because we’re the problem. But if Creation is true, we’re the purpose of this creation. God did it for us.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Age of the Earth

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Kurt Vonnegut 318

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