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I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did.

Kurt Vonnegut

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Kurt Vonnegut
Age: 84 †
Born: 1922
Born: November 11
Died: 2007
Died: April 14
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Kurt Vonnegut
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More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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We were all gun nuts and they were called varmints, crows were, because they ate grain and so did we.
Kurt Vonnegut
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His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.
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Jack Benny, Fred Allen. Their jokes were wonderful. It takes skill to be funny. The timing of Jack Benny was so fine. It is a form of genius for which we should be grateful.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her.
Kurt Vonnegut
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He was a graduate of West Point, which is military academy that turns young men into homicidal maniacs for use in war.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Anyway -- because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next -- and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis -- at any time of night or day.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The highest possible form of treason is to say that Americans aren’t loved wherever they go, whatever they do.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Only in books do we learn what’s really going on.
Kurt Vonnegut
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A lot of people were opposed to it. A lot of people were for it. I myself think about it as little as possible.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The most racist, nastiest act by America, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki. Not of Hiroshima, which might have had some military significance. But Nagasaki was purely blowing away yellow men, women, and children. I'm glad I'm not a scientist because I'd feel so guilty now.
Kurt Vonnegut
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[I write] intuitively, reflexively, as if skiing down a steep mountain slope with no time to think.
Kurt Vonnegut
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You know who was a hero? Franklin Roosevelt.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I urge you to please notice when you are happy.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I wasn't aware of Ku Klux Klan as I was aware of the widespread assumption that African-Americans were dumber than white people. I think my father believed that. I think everybody white did.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays. But they are murdered children all the same.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The death of a library, any library, suggests that the community has lost its soul.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Future generations will look back on TV as the lead in the water pipes that slowly drove the Romans mad.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The dog, who had sounded so ferocious in the winter distances, was a female German Shepherd. She was shivering. Her tail was between her legs. She had been borrowed that morning from a farmer. She had never been to war before. She had no idea what game was being played. Her name was Princess.
Kurt Vonnegut