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
christian jesus blessed
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, the demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
suicide smoking form
Smoking is the only honorable form of suicide.
dance-and-dancing dancing god lessons travel unexpected
Unexpected travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God
care compelling element games genuine others seductive subject
Find a subject you care about and which you feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
likes
I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me.
absolutely allowed fear literary members retrospect striking
It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment.
brought chemistry english scientific teacher
I was a chemistry major, but I'm always winding up as a teacher in English departments, so I've brought scientific thinking to literature. There's been very little gratitude for this.
extremely younger
Younger scientists are extremely sensitive to the moral implications of all they do.
close effective power
Actually, to be an effective person politically in this country, I think you have to be thirty or over, and also you have to be rich, well-placed, you have to be close to power. And I don't think that young people, because they look young, can do much, as I think they are counterproductive.
anyone electric job left offered paying west
I left the Middle West for Schenectady because the General Electric Company offered me a more congenial, better paying job than did anyone else.
This is Sunday, and the question arises, what'll I start tomorrow?
novelists perhaps
I think I belong to America's last generation of novelists. Novelists will come one by one from now on, not in seeming families, and will perhaps write only one or two novels, and let it go at that.
anybody consider form government inherent strengths
I consider anybody a twerp who hasn't read 'Democracy in America' by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.
build hope
I hope to build a reputation as a science-fiction writer. That's the pitch. We'll see.