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It was a marvelous engine for doing violence to the spirit of thousands of laws without actually running afoul of so much as a city ordinance.
Kurt Vonnegut -
There is never a shortage anywhere of lawyers eager to attack the First Amendment, as though it were nothing more than a clause in a lease from a crooked slumlord.
Kurt Vonnegut
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'I would say, ‘Is there anything I can do?’-but Skip once told me that that was the most hateful and stupid expression in the English language.'
Kurt Vonnegut -
There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.
Kurt Vonnegut -
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.
Kurt Vonnegut -
I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine.
Kurt Vonnegut -
A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees.
Kurt Vonnegut -
'Poo-Tee-Weet?'
Kurt Vonnegut
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Beer, of course, is actually a depressant. But poor people will never stop hoping otherwise.
Kurt Vonnegut -
'I can't help it,' I said. 'My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps right on doing bad, dumb things.''You and your what?' he said.'My soul and my meat,' I said.'They're separate?' he said.'I sure hope they are,' I said. I laughed. 'I would hate to be responsible for what my meat does.'
Kurt Vonnegut -
Generally speaking, espionage offers each spy an opportunity to go crazy in a way he finds irresistible.
Kurt Vonnegut -
'You go up to a man, and you say, ‘How are things going, Joe?’ And he says, ‘Oh fine, fine-couldn’t be better.’ And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.'
Kurt Vonnegut -
I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment following some bewildering experiences as an infantryman and later as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. The science of the Study of Man has been extremely satisfactory from that personal standpoint.
Kurt Vonnegut -
If you appear in the 'Atlantic' or 'Harper's' or the 'New Yorker,' by God, you must be a writer, because everybody says so.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal. If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative. What could be simpler?
Kurt Vonnegut -
1. Find a subject you care about.2. Do not ramble, though.3. Keep it simple.4. Have the guts to cut.5. Sound like yourself.6. Say what you mean to say.7. Pity the readers.
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.
Kurt Vonnegut -
If I'd been born in Germany, I suppose I would have been a Nazi, bopping Jews and gypsies and Poles around, leaving boots sticking out of snowbanks, warming myself with my secretly virtuous insides. So it goes.
Kurt Vonnegut -
'During my next visit with you, fellow-believers,' he said, 'I shall tell you a parable about people who do things that they think God Almighty wants done. In the meanwhile, you would do well, for background on this parable, to read everything that you can lay your hands on about the Spanish Inquisition.'
Kurt Vonnegut -
The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.
Kurt Vonnegut
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One of the great American tragedies is to have participated in a just war. It's been possible for politicians and movie-makers to encourage us we're always good guys. The Second World War absolutely had to be fought. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. But we never talk about the people we kill. This is never spoken of.
Kurt Vonnegut -
Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.
Kurt Vonnegut -
Here was what Kilgore Trout cried out to me in my father's voice: 'Make me young, make me young, make me young!'
Kurt Vonnegut -
If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.
Kurt Vonnegut