Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.was an American author. In a career spanning over 50 years, Vonnegut published fourteen novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. He is most famous for his darkly satirical, best-selling novel Slaughterhouse-Five...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth11 November 1922
CountryUnited States of America
sacrifice years dying
During my three years in Vietnam, I certainly heard plenty of last words by dying American footsoldiers. Not one of them, however, had illusions that he had somehow accomplished something worthwhile in the process of making the Supreme Sacrifice.
practice medicine safety
The most exquisite pleasure in the practice of medicine comes from nudging a layman in the direction of terror, then bringing him back to safety again.
country book america
While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.
responsibility steps turns
And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.
sometimes wonder breakfast-of-champions
Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe.
writing stories radio
Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
saint behave persons
A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shockingly indecent society.
brave healthy kind
Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.
writing opportunity culture
We have such a young culture that there is an opportunity to contribute wonderful new myths to it, which will be accepted.
entertainment tvs cameras
One good thing about TV is, if you die violently, God forbid, on camera, you will not have died in vain because you will be great entertainment.
children military men
The most racist, nastiest act by the USA, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki. Not of Hiroshima, which might have had some military significance. But Nagasaki was purely blowing away men, women, and children.
art art-is
No art is possible without a dance with death.
comforting comedian novelists
Comedians and jazz musicians have been more comforting and enlightening to me than preachers or politicians or philosophers or poets or painters or novelists of my time. Historians in the future, in my opinion, will congratulate us on very little other than our clowning and our jazz.
plato what-if meaning-of-life
Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?