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Historians in the future, in my opinion, will congratulate us on very little other than our clowning and our jazz.

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.
Littles
Little
Clowning
Congratulate
Historians
Historian
Jazz
Opinion
Future

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not.
Kurt Vonnegut
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You are better than you think.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Ink and paper are as cheap as sand or water, almost. No board of directors has to convene in order to decide whether we can afford to write down this or that. I myself once staged the end of the world on two pieces of paper- at a cost of ...less than a penny, including wear and tear on my typewriter ribbon and the seat of my pants. 'Think of that.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Of course, socialism is just evil now. It's completely discredited supposedly by the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I can't help noticing that my grandchildren are heavily in hock to Communist China now which is evidently a whole lot better at business than we are.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, 'Kurt is up in heaven now.' That's my favorite joke.
Kurt Vonnegut
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One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still--if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The worst thing about film, from my point of view, is that it cripples illusions which I have encouraged people to create in their heads. Film doesn't create illusion. It makes them impossible. It is a bullying form of reality, like the model rooms in the furniture department of Bloomingdale's.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If you actually are an educated, thinking person, you will not be welcome in Washington, D.C. I know a couple of bright seventh graders who would not be welcome in Washington D.C.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other people's vanity and foolishness.
Kurt Vonnegut
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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
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Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Kurt Vonnegut
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...Skyscraper National Park
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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That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I was clasified as a 'Science Fiction' writer simply because I wrote about Schenectady.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If people insist on living as if there's no tomorrow, there really won't be one.
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 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.
Kurt Vonnegut
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No one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.
Kurt Vonnegut