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I now believe that the only way in which Americans can rise above their ordinariness, can mature sufficiently to rescue themselves and to help rescue their planet, is through enthusiastic intimacy with works of their own imagination.

Kurt Vonnegut

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Kurt Vonnegut
Age: 84 †
Born: 1922
Born: November 11
Died: 2007
Died: April 14
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Indianapolis
Indiana
Kurt Vonnegut
Jr.
Works
Enthusiastic
Imagination
Rescue
Help
Intimacy
Helping
Mature
Believe
Rise
Way
Planet
Planets
Ordinariness
Americans
Sufficiently

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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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.
Kurt Vonnegut
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You'll forget it when you're dead, and so will I. When I'm dead, I'm going to forget everything–and I advise you to do the same.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?
Kurt Vonnegut
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Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The Bible may be the Greatest Story Ever Told, but the most popular story you can ever tell is about a good-looking couple having a really swell time copulating outside wedlock, and having to quit for one reason or another while doing it is still a novelty.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Laughter or crying is what a human being does when there's nothing else he can do.
Kurt Vonnegut
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My father said, ‘When in doubt, castle.’
Kurt Vonnegut
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Time is liquid. One moment is no more important than any other and all moments quickly run away.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still--if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.
Kurt Vonnegut
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People would be surprised if they knew how much in this world was due to prayers.
Kurt Vonnegut
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People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were only ugly things to do. They didn't own doodley-squat, so they couldn't improve their surroundings. so they did their best to make their insides beautiful instead.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Human beings are about 1,000 times dumber and meaner than they think they are.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The things other people have put into my head, at any rate, do not fit together nicely, are often useless and ugly, are out of proportion with one another, are out of proportion with life as it really is outside my head.
Kurt Vonnegut
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It's a terrible waste to be happy and not notice it.
Kurt Vonnegut
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How complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Anyone unable to understand how useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Nothing in this book is true.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Their imaginations were flywheels on the ramshackle machinery of the awful truth.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The worst thing about film, from my point of view, is that it cripples illusions which I have encouraged people to create in their heads. Film doesn't create illusion. It makes them impossible. It is a bullying form of reality, like the model rooms in the furniture department of Bloomingdale's.
Kurt Vonnegut