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Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak souls alike, and kill every time.

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.
Disease
Flimsy
Poverty
Uselessness
American
Mild
Strong
Relatively
Soul
Alike
Even
Souls
Every
Kill
Time
Weak

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Don't be reckless with other peoples hearts. And don't put up with people that are reckless with yours.
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For some people, getting pregnant is as easy as catching cold. And there certainly was an analogy there: Colds and babies were both caused by germs which loved nothing so much as a mucous membrane.
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The Circle Theatre, black people had to sit in the balcony. Any theater with a balcony, black people had to sit up there. Black people couldn't check into any hotel except their own. And black people couldn't eat anywhere except in their own restaurants.
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Anybody with any sense knows the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by.
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there i was in late middle age, cut loose in a thoroughly looted, bankrupt nation whose assets had been sold off to foreigners, a nation swamped by unchecked plagues and superstition and illiteracy and hypnotic tv, with virtually no health services for the poor. where to go? what to do?
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People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.
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Here is the solution to the American drug problem suggested a couple years back by the wife of our President: Just say no.
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There is a strong feeling in the Middle West that the artist is not pulling his own weight no matter how hard he may work, that the other people are doing the real stuff.
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Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you've got to be kind.
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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.
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The system promotes to the top those who don't care about the planet.
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The computer revolution has allowed white-collar criminals to do what the Mob would have loved to do - put a pawnshop and a loan shark in every home!
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Mark Twain was so good with crowds that he became, in competition with singers and dancers and actors and acrobats, one of the most popular performers of his time. It is so unusual, and so psychologically unlikely, too, for a great writer to be a great performer, too.
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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.
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All these years, I've been opening the window and making love to the world.
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Do you think Arabs are dumb? They gave us our numbers. Try doing long division with Roman numerals.
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Hate, in the long run, is about as nourishing as cyanide.
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Women are so useless and unimaginative, aren't they? All they ever think of planting in the dirt is the seed of something beautiful or edible. The only missile they can ever think of throwing at anybody is a ball or a bridal bouquet.
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Cigarettes are a classy way to commit suiside.
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Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
Kurt Vonnegut