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People hate it when they're tickled because laughter is not pleasant, if it goes on too long. I think it's a desperate sort of convulsion in desperate circumstances, which helps a little.

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.
Thinking
Goes
People
Sort
Convulsion
Hate
Tickled
Helping
Desperate
Littles
Pleasant
Little
Helps
Long
Laughter
Think
Circumstances

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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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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My ancestors were all Freethinkers, formerly Catholics. It was science and Darwin, in particular, that made them decide, as educated people, which they were, that the priest, nice as he was, didn't know what he was talking about.
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You know — we've had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock. 'My God, my God — ' I said to myself, 'It's the Children's Crusade.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be the same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one: ETC.
Kurt Vonnegut
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kar.a.bek.i.an (n.) (from Rabo Karabekian, U.S. 20th Cent. painter). Fiasco in which a person causes total destruction of own work and reputation through stupidity, carelessness or both.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Educate yourself, welcome life's messiness, read Chekhov, avoid becoming an architect at all costs.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The world is full of people who are very clever at seeming much smarter than they really are.
Kurt Vonnegut
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I'm eighty-three and I've been smoking since I was eleven. I'm suing the cigarette company because it promised to kill me and it hasn't.
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
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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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...this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
Kurt Vonnegut
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On the day they dropped the bomb Frank had a tablespoon and a Mason jar. What he was doing was spooning different kinds of bugs into the jar and making them fight....I can remember other bug fights we staged later on...They won't fight unless you keep shaking the jar.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
Kurt Vonnegut
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The only thing I ever learned was that some people are lucky and other people aren't and not even a graduate of the Harvard Business School can say why.
Kurt Vonnegut
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If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.
Kurt Vonnegut
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He became fubar in the classic way, which is to say that he was the victim of a temporary arrangement that became permanent.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Start [writing] as close to the end as possible.
Kurt Vonnegut