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What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It's a very rough one, but you went away a boy and came back a man, maybe with an eye missing or whatever but godammit you were a man and people had to call you a man thereafter.

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.
Whatever
Mature
Eye
Rough
War
Missing
Away
Boys
Thereafter
Back
Went
Puberty
Always
Maybe
Immature
Men
Came
Ceremony
People
Call
Maturity

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.
Kurt Vonnegut
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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.
Kurt Vonnegut
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In 1844, Karl Marx said, Religion is the opiate of the masses. He said this at a time when opium and opium derivatives were the only painkillers. And he said it helped a little. He might as well have said, Religion is the aspirin of the people.
Kurt Vonnegut
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You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I am beguiled by your physical beauty, and I am moved by how head-over-heels in love with books you are. And nowhere else have I found such thoughtful and literate reportage on the state of the American soul, as that soul makes itself known in the books we write.
Kurt Vonnegut
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It's only recently that I've come to understand that writers are not marginal to our society, that they, in fact, do all our thinking for us, that we are writing myths and our myths are believed, and that old myths are believed until someone writes a new one.
Kurt Vonnegut
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A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shockingly indecent society.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The slaves were simply turned loose without any property. They were easily recognizable. They were black. They were suddenly free to go exploring.
Kurt Vonnegut
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All these years, I've been opening the window and making love to the world.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Never index your own book.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Nietzsche had a little one-liner on how to choose a wife. He said, ''Are you willing to have a conversation with this woman for the next forty years?'' That's how to pick a wife.
Kurt Vonnegut
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It seems to me divorce is so common now. It ought to be more institutionalized. It's like a head-on collision every time. It's supposed to be a surprise but it's commonplace.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Start [writing] as close to the end as possible.
Kurt Vonnegut
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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.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Educating a beautiful woman is like pouring honey into a fine Swiss watch: everything stops.
Kurt Vonnegut
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That’s the secret of artistic unity. Anybody can achieve it, if he or she will make something with only one person in mind.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Kurt Vonnegut
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We are all experiments in enthusiasms, narrow and preordained.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Every writer has to write his speech.
Kurt Vonnegut