Kurt Vonnegut citations (347 citations, Page 4)

A close paraphrase of this (beginning "Do not use...") is repeated in a commencement address at Cloves Hall, 27 April 2007, as reprinted in Armageddon in Retrospect
A Man Without a Country (2005)

“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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Kurt Vonnegut livre A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

“The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front."”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus (1990)

“The controls were anything but a hunch-player’s delight in a Universe composed of one-trillionth part matter to one decillion parts black velvet futility.”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre The Sirens of Titan

Epilogue “Reunion with Stony” (p. 303)
The Sirens of Titan (1959)

“A joke is like building a mousetrap from scratch. You have to work pretty hard to make the thing snap when it is supposed to snap.”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

“Things die. All things die.”

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Kurt Vonnegut Happy Birthday, Wanda June

Introduction, "About This Play"
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)

“I never knew a writer's wife who wasn't beautiful.”

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Kurt Vonnegut

Preface
Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)

“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.”

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Kurt Vonnegut

Interviewed by Roger Friedman, "God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,70164,00.html, FoxNews.com (11 November 2002) <br class="br">Various interviews

“I don't care if I'm remembered or not when I'm dead. (A scientist I knew at General Electric, who was married to a woman named Josephine, said to me, "Why should I buy life insurance? If I die, I won't care what's happening to Jo. I won't care about anything. I'll be dead.")”

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Kurt Vonnegut

Fates Worse than Death (1991)

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre Abattoir 5 ou la Croisade des enfants

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

“Congressman Nixon had asked me why, as the son of immigrants who had been treated so well by Americans, as a man who had been treated like a son and been sent to Harvard by an American capitalist, I had been so ungrateful to the American economic system.
The answer I gave him was not original. Nothing about me has ever been original. I repeated what my one-time hero, Kenneth Whistler, had said in reply to the same general sort of question long, long ago. Whistler had been a witness at a trial of strikers accused of violence. The judge had become curious about him, had asked him why such a well-educated man from such a good family would so immerse himself in the working class.
My stolen answer to Nixon was this: "Why? The Sermon on the Mount, sir."”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre Jailbird

Jailbird (1979)

“Hey — guess what: You're the only creature with free will. How does that make you feel?”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre Le Breakfast du champion

Breakfast of Champions (1973)

“These unhappy agents found what had already been found in abundance on Earth—a nightmare of meaningless without end. The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.
Outwardness lost, at last, its imagined attractions.
Only inwardness remained to be explored.
Only the human soul remained terra incognita.
This was the beginning of goodness and wisdom.”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 1 “Between Timid and Timbuktu” (p. 8)

“Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant’s father had done a similar thing when he found he could not buy Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” at any price. The old man had punished Mona Lisa by having her used in an advertising campaign for suppositories. It was the free-enterprise way of handling beauty that threatened to get the upper hand.”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 2 “Cheers in the Wirehouse” (p. 56)

“My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse."”

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Kurt Vonnegut

I Love You, Madame Librarian (2004)

“I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That’s why we’ve got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.”

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Kurt Vonnegut

On evolution vs. "intelligent design", interviewed by Jon Stewart, The Daily Show http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=18090&title=kurt-vonnegut/ (13 September 2005) <br class="br">Various interviews

“The most important message of a crucifix, to me anyway, was how unspeakably cruel supposedly sane human beings can be when under orders from a superior authority.”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus (1990)

“Dear Reader: The title of this book is composed of three words from my novel Cat's Cradle. A wampeter is an object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve. The Holy Grail would be a case in point. Foma are harmless untruths, intended to comfort simple souls. An example: "Prosperity is just around the corner." A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings. Taken together, the words form as good an umbrella as any for this collection of some of the reviews and essays I've written, a few of the speeches I made.”

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Kurt Vonnegut

"Preface"
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (1974)

“The riot, then, was an exercise in science and theology—a seeking after clues by the living as to what life was all about.”

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Kurt Vonnegut livre The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 1 “Between Timid and Timbuktu” (p. 44)