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The only way to get anything out of a writer's brains is to leave him or her alone until he or she is damn well ready to write it down.
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.
Write
Anything
Brains
Wells
Damn
Well
Writer
Writing
Leave
Way
Ready
Brain
Alone
More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut
The hopes and fears of all our years are here with us tonight.
Kurt Vonnegut
I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.
Kurt Vonnegut
A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.
Kurt Vonnegut
The most racist, nastiest act by America, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki. Not of Hiroshima, which might have had some military significance. But Nagasaki was purely blowing away yellow men, women, and children. I'm glad I'm not a scientist because I'd feel so guilty now.
Kurt Vonnegut
I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That's why we've got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.
Kurt Vonnegut
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Kurt Vonnegut
There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.
Kurt Vonnegut
Only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people ran for class president.
Kurt Vonnegut
This is what i find most encouraging about the writing trades: they allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into something like intelligence. They also allow lunatics to seem saner than sane.
Kurt Vonnegut
Maturity, the way I understand it, is knowing what your limitations are.
Kurt Vonnegut
The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not.
Kurt Vonnegut
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
We are what we imagine ourselves to be.
Kurt Vonnegut
It's only recently that I've come to understand that writers are not marginal to our society, that they, in fact, do all our thinking for us, that we are writing myths and our myths are believed, and that old myths are believed until someone writes a new one.
Kurt Vonnegut
The Circle Theatre, black people had to sit in the balcony. Any theater with a balcony, black people had to sit up there. Black people couldn't check into any hotel except their own. And black people couldn't eat anywhere except in their own restaurants.
Kurt Vonnegut
People are lying all the time as to what a murderous nation we are. So let it be known. We're behaving abominably. It's like having a relative go absolutely nuts. Somebody has to say, I think Uncle Charlie's off his rocker. We are behaving in a bizarre manner.
Kurt Vonnegut
Here is a lesson in writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
Kurt Vonnegut
Start [writing] as close to the end as possible.
Kurt Vonnegut
the late twentieth century will go down in history, i'm sure, as an era of pharmaceutical buffoonery.
Kurt Vonnegut
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
