Mark Vonnegut
Mark Vonnegut
Mark Vonnegutis an American pediatrician and memoirist. He is the son of writer Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and his first wife, Jane Cox. He is the brother of Edith Vonnegut and Nanette Vonnegut. He described himself in the preface to his 1975 book as "a hippie, son of a counterculture hero, BA in religion,genetic disposition to schizophrenia.":preface...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth11 May 1947
CountryUnited States of America
mean voice differences
When I talk to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and other patient support groups, I take questions at the end. At one talk I was asked, "What's the difference between yourself and someone without mental illness?". At another talk I was asked, "How do you make the voices be not so mean?". I wish I knew.
beautiful mother voice
My mother, who was radiant, young, and beautiful even as she lay dying, heard voices and saw visions, but she always managed to make friends with them and was much too charming to hospitalize even at her craziest.
voice talking world
Once you've been talked to by voices, it's not possible to go back to a world where talking voices is not possible.
sick wells
None of us are entirely well, and none of us are irrecoverably sick.
reading writing reading-and-writing
Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts...
book son self
Note to self: being Kurt's son, being an ex-mental patient, getting into Harvard, having written a book, and being a doctor are all things that in and of themselves do not make a life. If you lean on them too hard, you'll find that there's not much there. But if you add up a lot of things that aren't in and of themselves enough, it almost starts to add up to something....
book might would-be
Without writers fooling themselves about what their books might accomplish there would be no books at all.
people feelings kicks
Having their feelings make sense is how people get their kicks.
memories regret crazy
It's regrets that make painful memories. When I was crazy I did everything just right.
crazy ideas paper
Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas?
feelings important mental-illness
With mental illness the trick is to not take your feelings so seriously; you’re zooming in and zooming away from things that go from being too important to being not important at all.
art thinking giving
Art is lunging forward without certainty about where you are going or how to get there, being open to and dependent on what luck, the paint, the typo, the dissonance, give you. Without art, you're stuck with yourself as you are and life as you think life is.
We're here to get each other through this thing, whatever it is.
reading writing thinking
The most radical, audacious thing to think is that there might be some point to working hard and thinking hard and reading hard and writing hard and trying to be of service