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Any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a charlatan.

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.
Charlatan
Charlatans
Explain
Scientist
Eight
Year
Years

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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Any man who would change the World in a significant way must have showmanship, a genial willingness to shed other people's blood, and a plausible new religion to introduce during the brief period of repentance and horror that usually follows bloodshed.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Nothing in this book is true.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I don't know about you, but I practice a disorganized religion. I belong to an unholy disorder. We call ourselves Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you've got to be kind.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The polls demonstrate that 50 percent of Americans who get their news from TV think Saddam Hussein was behind the Twin Towers attack. Man, have they got ways for getting half-truths out right away now, thanks to TV! I think TV is a calamity in a democracy.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I saw the destruction of Dresden. I saw the city before and then came out of an air-raid shelter and saw it afterward, and certainly one response was laughter. God knows, that's the soul seeking some relief.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Human beings will believe in all kinds of things that aren't true, and that's okay. And TV is a part of that.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If you make people laugh or cry about little black marks on sheets of white paper, what is that but a practical joke? All the great story lines are great practical jokes that people fall for over and over again.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I would not be interested in writing if I didn't feel that what I wrote was an act of good citizenship or an attempt, at any rate, to be a good citizen.
Kurt Vonnegut
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It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can't get out of, but I think this is very usual in life.
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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Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly better than no drugs at all.
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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Here is the solution to the American drug problem suggested a couple years back by the wife of our President: Just say no.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Well, it's an ancestral tribe. These were immigrants from north of Germany who came here about the time of the Civil War, but anyway, these people called themselves free thinkers. They were impressed, incidentally, by Darwin. They're called Humanists now people who aren't so sure that the Bible is the Word of God.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I hope that my ideas attract a lively dialogue, even if my sentences are simple. Simple sentences have always served me well. And I don't use semicolons. It's hard to read anyway, especially for high school kids. Also, I avoid irony, too. I don't like people saying one thing and meaning the other.
Kurt Vonnegut
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You know who was a hero? Franklin Roosevelt.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I go on many thrilling adventures and wondrous, profound escapades through books.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Don't worry about your father. He's a perfectly contented, self-sufficient zombie.
Kurt Vonnegut
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As stupid and vicious as men are, this is a lovely day.
Kurt Vonnegut