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For a Russian to be chivalrous with an American is a spiritual impossibility, a conradiction in terms.

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.
Russian
Terms
Term
American
Spiritual
Chivalrous
Inconsistency
Impossibility

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Children get smashed for hours on some strictly limited aspect of the Great Big Everything, the Universe, such as water or snow or mud or colors or rocks.
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In the middle of Siberia I guess there's a lake that big [ like the Great Lakes], but there are practically no other lakes that big with fresh water.
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If people insist on living as if there's no tomorrow, there really won't be one.
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I'm mad about being old and I'm mad about being American. Apart from that, OK.
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How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
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All right - I'll tell you what you did for me: you went for happy, silly, beautiful walks with me.
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Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.
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Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
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Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.
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Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer.
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Being an American means never having to say you're sorry.
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Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before, Bokonon tells us. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
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Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak souls alike, and kill every time.
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The moral of the story is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around.
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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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But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.
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Honest to God, Bill, the way things are going, all I can think of is that I'm a character in a book by somebody who wants to write about somebody who suffers all the time.
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Laughter or crying is what a human being does when there's nothing else he can do.
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A committee of three can accomplish much if two don't show up.
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The Summer had died peacefully in its sleep, and Autumn, as soft-spoken executrix, was locking life up safely until Spring came to claim it.
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