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Did you ever admire an empty-headed writer for his or her mastery of the language? No. So your own winning style must begin with ideas in your head.

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.
Style
Head
Headed
Winning
Mastery
Language
Admire
Ideas
Profound
Ever
Empty
Must
Begin
Writer

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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The city was blacked out because bombers might come, so Billy didn't get to see Dresden do one of the most cheerful things a city can do when the sun goes down, which is to wink its lights on one by one.
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That's what my books are, now that I'm a grownup - mosaics of jokes.
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Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.
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I couldn't survive my own pessimism if I didn't have some kind of sunny little dream.
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My ancestors were all Freethinkers, formerly Catholics. It was science and Darwin, in particular, that made them decide, as educated people, which they were, that the priest, nice as he was, didn't know what he was talking about.
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I myself grew up when radio was very important. I'd come home from school and turn on the radio. There were funny comedians and wonderful music, and there were plays. I used to pass time with radio.
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What's the point of being alive, she said, if you're not going to communicate?
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I pity the Jews trying to get through life with only half a Bible. That's like trying to get from here to San Francisco with a road map that stops at Dubuque, Iowa.
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My country is in ruins. So I'm a fish in a poisoned fishbowl. I'm mostly just heartsick about this. There should have been hope. This should have been a great country. But we are despised all over the world now. 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.
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The death of a library, any library, suggests that the community has lost its soul.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Maturity, the way I understand it, is knowing what your limitations are.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I had a friend who was a heavy drinker. If somebody asked him if he'd been drunk the night before, he would always answer offhandedly, 'Oh, I imagine.' I've always liked that answer. It acknowledges life as a dream.
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Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly better than no drugs at all.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Smoking is the only honorable form of suicide.
Kurt Vonnegut
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We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I'm eighty-three and I've been smoking since I was eleven. I'm suing the cigarette company because it promised to kill me and it hasn't.
Kurt Vonnegut
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One [television] program was an interminable exploration of the question: can a woman with a low I.Q. be happily married to a man with a high one? The answer seemed to be yes and no.
Kurt Vonnegut
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About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.
Kurt Vonnegut