Quotes from book
Bluebeard

Name: Bluebeard
Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Bluebeard, the Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian is a 1987 novel by best-selling author Kurt Vonnegut. It is told as a first person narrative and describes the late years of fictional Abstract Expressionist painter Rabo Karabekian, who first appeared as a minor character in Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions . Circumstances of the novel bear rough resemblance to the fairy tale of Bluebeard popularized by Charles Perrault. Karabekian mentions this relationship once in the novel.

“It is a gruesome Disneyland. Nobody is cute there.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Bluebeard

Bluebeard (1987)

“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?”

Kurt Vonnegut book Bluebeard

Source: Bluebeard (1987), p. 168

“"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

“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"