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One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.

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.
Universe
Understand
Might
Going
Thoroughly
Things
Suspect
Suspects
Sorts

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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The umpire had comical news. The congregation had been theoretically spotted from the air by a theoretical enemy. They were all theoretically dead now. The theoretical corpses laughed and ate a hearty noontime meal.
Kurt Vonnegut
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One of the things I'm going to say out there is how grateful I am - and how grateful the world is - for the tremendous gift of the black people, of jazz.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The crowd, having been promised nothing, felt cheated, having received nothing.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double to 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000. I suppose they will all want dignity, I said.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Kurt Vonnegut
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My ancestors were Freethinkers - and that's what I am, except we're called secular humanists now.
Kurt Vonnegut
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My god-life! who can understand eve one little minute of it? 'don't try' he said 'just pretend you understand.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Nothing in this book is true.
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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Be fruitful, and multiply.
Kurt Vonnegut
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One thing I found out was that we need extended families. We need gangs. And, of course, if they're tribes and clans and so forth have been dispersed by the industrial revolution by people looking for work wherever they can find it. And a nuclear family, a man, a woman and kids and a dog and cat is no survival scheme at all. Horribly vulnerable.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Oh, a lion hunter in the jungle dark, And a sleeping drunkard up in central park, and a Chinese dentist and a British queen All fit together in the same machine. Nice, nice, such very different people in the same device!
Kurt Vonnegut
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You know, the Emancipation Proclamation was like giving freedom to domestic animals.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Vonnegut could not help looking back, despite the danger of being turned metaphorically into a pillar of salt, into am emblem of the death that comes to those who cannot let go of the past
Kurt Vonnegut
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What everybody is well advised to do is to not write about your own life, this is if you want to write fast. You will be writing about your own life anyway but you won't know it.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Anybody with any sense knows the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by.
Kurt Vonnegut
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But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If I wrote something that hadn't really happened, and I tried to sell it, I could go to jail. That's fraud!
Kurt Vonnegut