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My country is in ruins. So I'm a fish in a poisoned fishbowl. I'm mostly just heartsick about this. There should have been hope. This should have been a great country. But we are despised all over the world now. 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.

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.
Books
Hoping
Literature
Ruins
Hope
Fish
War
Mostly
Book
Fishes
Country
Add
Poisoned
Great
Wrote
Despised
World
Build
Served

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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You know who was a hero? Franklin Roosevelt.
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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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George Bush and his gang imagine they are being political geniuses.
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Anyway -- because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next -- and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis -- at any time of night or day.
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Start [writing] as close to the end as possible.
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Evolution is a mistake. Humans are a mistake. We've destroyed our planet.
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Artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are supersensitive. They keel over like canaries in coal mines filled with poison gas, long before more robust types realize that any danger is there.
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You don't do art for any other reason than to help your soul grow.
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Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow.
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One [television] program was an interminable exploration of the question: can a woman with a low I.Q. be happily married to a man with a high one? The answer seemed to be yes and no.
Kurt Vonnegut
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One of the things I'm going to say out there is how grateful I am - and how grateful the world is - for the tremendous gift of the black people, of jazz.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I am beguiled by your physical beauty, and I am moved by how head-over-heels in love with books you are. And nowhere else have I found such thoughtful and literate reportage on the state of the American soul, as that soul makes itself known in the books we write.
Kurt Vonnegut
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After that demonstration everybody was thinking, what's going to happen to these wonderful men who have been so useful to us? We have to give people something to do with life.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If facts weren't funny, or scary, or couldn't make you rich, the heck with them.
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The arts are not a way to make a living.
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Be patient. Your future will come to you and lie down at your feet like a dog who knows and loves you no matter what you are.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I love you, because the love you gave me was the only love I've ever had, the only love I ever will have
Kurt Vonnegut
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Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.
Kurt Vonnegut
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There were creative-writin g teachers long before there were creative-writin g courses, and they were called and continue to be called editors.
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