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When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away.

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.
Would
Tell
Away
Used
Character
Right
Characters
Writing
Students
Something
Teach
Make
Creative

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No one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.
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Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.
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Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.
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People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.
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He became fubar in the classic way, which is to say that he was the victim of a temporary arrangement that became permanent.
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It's the writer's job to stage confrontations, so the characters will say surprising and revealing things, and educate and entertain us all.
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Nowadays, of course, just about our only solvent industry is the merchandising of death, bankrolled by our grandchildren.
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I am a monopolar depressive descended from monopolar depressives. That's how come I write so good.
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She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].
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Love is where you find it.
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People are only animals, but special animals. Every animal has fought and killed to survive, even before the dinosaurs. We're the only ones that do it for fun. That's why I don't know about Darwinism. Supposedly evolution and natural selection are all about survival, but we haven't gotten smarter over the years, only more dangerous.
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I learned how to make jokes because I wanted to give people as much fun as they did, and I guess I did, too.
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Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue, the monograph went on. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact how hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves.
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The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.
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Maybe they invited me because they know I have a tuxedo
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Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
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egregious. most people think that word means terrible or unheard of or unforgivable. it has a much more interesting story than that to tell. it means outside the herd. imagine that - thousands of people, outside the herd.
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I saw the destruction of Dresden. I saw the city before and then came out of an air-raid shelter and saw it afterward, and certainly one response was laughter. God knows, that's the soul seeking some relief.
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On the day they dropped the bomb Frank had a tablespoon and a Mason jar. What he was doing was spooning different kinds of bugs into the jar and making them fight....I can remember other bug fights we staged later on...They won't fight unless you keep shaking the jar.
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But he is tired. He puts the pistol to his head again. He says, “I never asked to be born in the first place.
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