Famous Kurt Vonnegut Quotations

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"Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"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."
by Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"All persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental, and should not be construed."
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"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"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"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."
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, And don't put up with people that are reckless with yours."
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, And don't put up with people that are reckless with yours"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"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."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of."
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"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."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours."
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"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 centre."
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"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."
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"I want the people of New Jersey to jump off a cliff like Kurt Vonnegut so I can show them how to fly. This way, nobody needs to grow any wings, which would be impossible anyway because we're humans and not some kind of bird."
by Richie Sambora
"If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems. This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry--or laugh."
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion... I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"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."
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything."
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Men are jerks. Women are psychotic."
by Kilgore Trout
"New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"One of the few good things about modern times If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say."
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Cat's Cradle
"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"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!"
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"The chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was too late, how heartless and greedy they were."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"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"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"The worst thing that could happen to anybody, would be to not be used for anything by anybody"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I dont know what can be done to fix it. This is it Only nut cases want to be president."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I donÆt know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"We are what we pretend to be, but we better be very careful what we pretend."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Well, the telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Well, the telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"You know what I say to people when I hear they’re writing an anti-war book?… I say, 'why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?'
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"... this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate. So many people wanted to believe me! Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!"
by Kurt Vonnegut
"Thinking doesn't seem to help very much. The human brain is too high-powered to have many practical uses in this particular universe."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very much with his life anyway. The example usually is: he wasn't going to compose Beethoven's Fifth."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"We are all what we pretend to be, but, we had better be very careful what we pretend."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, I said, but no good reason ever to have without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"All those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand..."
by Kurt Vonnegut
"I pity the Jews trying to get through life with only half a Bible. That's like trying to get from here to San Francisco with a road map that stops at Dubuque, Iowa."
by Grandfather Wills , Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut
"How embarrassing to be human."
by Kurt Vonnegut


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