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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.
Back
Went
Puberty
Always
Maybe
Immature
Men
Came
Ceremony
People
Call
Maturity
Whatever
Mature
Eye
Rough
War
Missing
Away
Boys
Thereafter
More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut
I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays. But they are murdered children all the same.
Kurt Vonnegut
Don't be reckless with other peoples hearts. And don't put up with people that are reckless with yours.
Kurt Vonnegut
After the thing went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb, a scientist turned to Father and said, 'Science has now known sin.' And do you know what Father said? He said, 'What is sin?
Kurt Vonnegut
Unfortunately, that still leaves plenty of Americans who don't read much or think much -- who will still be extremely useful in unjust wars. We are sick about that. We did the best we could.
Kurt Vonnegut
I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.
Kurt Vonnegut
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
Much of the conversation in the country consisted of lines from television shows, both past and present.
Kurt Vonnegut
His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.
Kurt Vonnegut
You know — we've had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock. 'My God, my God — ' I said to myself, 'It's the Children's Crusade.
Kurt Vonnegut
Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference.
Kurt Vonnegut
Einstein's E=mc2 is an extraordinary concept. So radical: matter and energy are two phases of the same sort of general stuff. There's only one other idea that radical: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Kurt Vonnegut
I love cell phones. I see people so happy and proud, walking around. Gesturing, you know. I'm like Karl Marx, I'm up for anything that makes people happy.
Kurt Vonnegut
When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away.
Kurt Vonnegut
I can't tell if you're serious or not,' said the driver. I won't know myself until I find out if life is serious or not,' said Trout. 'It's dangerous, I know, and it can hurt a lot. That doesn't necessarily mean it's serious, too.
Kurt Vonnegut
Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.
Kurt Vonnegut
I think William Shakespeare was the wisest human being I ever heard of. To be perfectly frank, though, that's not saying much.
Kurt Vonnegut
Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself.
Kurt Vonnegut
Smoking is the only honorable form of suicide.
Kurt Vonnegut
[People] want to feel superior, so they imagine we're Bible thumpers and uneducated and all that.
Kurt Vonnegut
I paraphrase Aristotle: If you want to be comical, write about people to whom the audience can feel superior if you want to be tragical, write about at least one person to whom the audience is bound to feel inferior, and no fair having human problems solved by dumb luck or heavenly intervention.
Kurt Vonnegut
