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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.

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.
Alive
Past
Remember
Matter
Repeat
Doomed
Repeats
News

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.
Kurt Vonnegut
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[I write] intuitively, reflexively, as if skiing down a steep mountain slope with no time to think.
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I had a friend who was a heavy drinker. If somebody asked him if he'd been drunk the night before, he would always answer offhandedly, 'Oh, I imagine.' I've always liked that answer. It acknowledges life as a dream.
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Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before, Bokonon tells us. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Humanists try to behave decently and honorably without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. The creator of the universe has been unknown to us so far. We serve as well as we can to the highest abstraction of which we have some understanding, which is our community.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The Summer had died peacefully in its sleep, and Autumn, as soft-spoken executrix, was locking life up safely until Spring came to claim it.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself.
Kurt Vonnegut
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There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.
Kurt Vonnegut
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In the water I am beautiful.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.
Kurt Vonnegut
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What can any one person do?' he said. 'Each person does a little something,' I said, 'and there you are.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I couldn't survive my own pessimism if I didn't have some kind of sunny little dream.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I hope that my ideas attract a lively dialogue, even if my sentences are simple. Simple sentences have always served me well. And I don't use semicolons. It's hard to read anyway, especially for high school kids. Also, I avoid irony, too. I don't like people saying one thing and meaning the other.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I was hoping to build a country and add to its literature. That's why I served in World War II, and that's why I wrote books.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I went to high school in Indianapolis I learned how to walk around looking tough because everybody had to do that. I go out there occasionally and they're still doing it, walking around looking very tough because something might happen.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Like all real heroes, Charley had a fatal flaw. He refused to believe that he had gonorrhea, whereas the truth was that he did.
Kurt Vonnegut
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As Marilee and I were dressing, I whispered to her that I loved her with all my heart. What else was there to say? 'You don't. You can't,' she said.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Start [writing] as close to the end as possible.
Kurt Vonnegut
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He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The most exquisite pleasure in the practice of medicine comes from nudging a layman in the direction of terror, then bringing him back to safety again.
Kurt Vonnegut