Kurt Vonnegut Quotes
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When the excrement hit the air conditioner (Recurring phrase throughout many chapters)
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It is always pitiful when any human being falls into a condition hardly more respectable than that of an animal. How much more pitiful it is when the person who falls has had all the advantages!
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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.
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One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.
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If you actually are an educated, thinking person, you will not be welcome in Washington DC.
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Things die. All things die.
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Oh, sure, we have another world war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders this time?
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I can have oodles of charm when I want to.
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We've sure come a long way since then. Sometimes I wish we hadn't. I hate H-bombs and the Jerry Springer show.
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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers - joined in the serious business of keeping our food, shelter, clothing and loved ones from combining with oxygen.
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What is flirtatiousness but an argument that life must go on and on and on?
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'The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody,' she said, 'would be to not be used for anything by anybody.' ... 'Thank you for using me,' she said to Constant, 'even though I didn’t want to be used by anybody.'
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Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
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Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.
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'The hell with the human race!' said Beatrice.'You’re a member of it, you know,' said Rumfoord.'Then I’d like to put in for a transfer to the chimpanzees!' said Beatrice. 'No chimpanzee husband would stand by while his wife lost all her coconuts.'
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Fish! Fish! Fish!
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We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
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I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.
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Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
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Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery.