Quote

I don't think there would be many jokes, if there weren't constant frustration and fear and so forth. It's a response to bad troubles like crime.

Kurt Vonnegut

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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.
Crime
Trouble
Troubles
Fear
Frustration
Many
Weren
Would
Forth
Think
Jokes
Thinking
Response
Like
Constant

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

Image
Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
Here is a lesson in creative 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
Image
. . . hummings and clickings could be heard-the sounds attendant to the flow of electrons, now augmenting one maze of electromagnetic crises to a condition that was translatable from electrical qualities and quantities to a high grade of truth.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
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
Image
As a matter of social class Ku Klux Klan would have been regarded as white trash.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
Hitler at the end thought that he himself was one more casualty in the war.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double to 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000. I suppose they will all want dignity, I said.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around in society like gut-shot bears.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
Any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a charlatan.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
Of course, socialism is just evil now. It's completely discredited supposedly by the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I can't help noticing that my grandchildren are heavily in hock to Communist China now which is evidently a whole lot better at business than we are.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
[People] want to feel superior, so they imagine we're Bible thumpers and uneducated and all that.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
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.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
The computer revolution has allowed white-collar criminals to do what the Mob would have loved to do - put a pawnshop and a loan shark in every home!
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself.
Kurt Vonnegut
Image
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.
Kurt Vonnegut