Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

Quotes

• Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!

• Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

• Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.

• I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.

• I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

• Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before... He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

• 1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.

• Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

• Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.

• All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.

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

• A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

• I am eternally grateful.. for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.

• I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did'.

• The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.

• History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

• The worst thing that could happen to anybody, would be to not be used for anything by anybody.

• People have to talk about something just to keep their good voice boxes in working order, so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.

• The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow.

• Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, And don't put up with people that are reckless with yours.