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Never trust a survivor until you know how they survived.

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.
Survivor
Survived
Trust
Never

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did.
Kurt Vonnegut
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A lot of people were opposed to it. A lot of people were for it. I myself think about it as little as possible.
Kurt Vonnegut
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They tell him that there is no why, since the moment simply is and since all of them are trapped in the moment, like bugs in amber.
Kurt Vonnegut
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...this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Jokes can be noble. Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward - and since I can start thinking and striving again that much sooner.
Kurt Vonnegut
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That’s the attractive thing about war,” said Rosewater. “Absolutely everybody gets a little something.
Kurt Vonnegut
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This is a nation tragedy, of course - that we've changed from a society to an audience.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The biggest laughs are based on the biggest disappointments and the biggest fears.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
Kurt Vonnegut
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You know, I think the main purpose of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps is to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched clothes, so rich Americans can stand to look at them.
Kurt Vonnegut
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She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].
Kurt Vonnegut
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The Bible may be the Greatest Story Ever Told, but the most popular story you can ever tell is about a good-looking couple having a really swell time copulating outside wedlock, and having to quit for one reason or another while doing it is still a novelty.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I just don't think people get off on language anymore. Language used to be an elevated art. It used to be for people what music can be. But people don't learn to do that anymore, so eloquence is merely a matter of waste. Who needs a good vocabulary and proper English? Eloquence - it's dead and who needs it?
Kurt Vonnegut
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Start [writing] as close to the end as possible.
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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I keep losing and regaining my equilibrium, which is the basic plot of all popular fiction. And I myself am a work of fiction.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Words may deeply wound us, but we must run that risk to be free.
Kurt Vonnegut