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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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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.
Right
Getting
Painstakingly
Writing
Story
Fixing
Work
Write
Plain
Way
Next
Sentence
Time
Doesn
Sentences
Stories
Awful
Everything
Quickly
Done
Exactly
Bashers

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
Kurt Vonnegut
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How embarrassing it is to be human.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I apologize because of the terrible mess the planet is in. But it has always been a mess. There have never been any 'Good Old Days,' there have just been days. And as I say to my grandchildren, 'Don't look at me. I just got here myself.'
Kurt Vonnegut
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I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.
Kurt Vonnegut
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And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The reason we write fiction is because it's so much easier to exist spending part of each day in an imaginary world.
Kurt Vonnegut
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A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.
Kurt Vonnegut
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No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious & charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales.
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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Any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a charlatan.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.
Kurt Vonnegut
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There is no shortage of wonderful writers. What we lack is a dependable mass of readers.
Kurt Vonnegut
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One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Men are jerks. Women are psychotic.
Kurt Vonnegut
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You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages--they haven't ended yet.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The only way to get anything out of a writer's brains is to leave him or her alone until he or she is damn well ready to write it down.
Kurt Vonnegut