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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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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.
Men
Periods
Brief
World
Usually
Repentance
People
Blood
Follows
Showmanship
Religion
Shed
Genial
Change
Willingness
Bloodshed
Must
Significant
Plausible
Way
Period
Introduce
Would
Horror
Introducing

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea what's really going on.
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If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake.
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Words may deeply wound us, but we must run that risk to be free.
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The highest treason in the USA is to say Americans are not loved, no matter where they are, no matter what they are doing there.
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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.
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The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.
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You'll forget it when you're dead, and so will I. When I'm dead, I'm going to forget everything–and I advise you to do the same.
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So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.
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Maturity, the way I understand it, is knowing what your limitations are.
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People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.
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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.
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She broke my heart. I didn't like that much. But that was the price. In this world, you get what you pay for.
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.
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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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I hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases.
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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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... uncritical love is the only real treasure.
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There is this feeling that I have a destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life.
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Smoking is the only honorable form of suicide.
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Like all real heroes, Charley had a fatal flaw. He refused to believe that he had gonorrhea, whereas the truth was that he did.
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