Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Kurt Vonnegut
332 quotes
“I had hoped, as a broadcaster, to be merely ludicrous, but 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. So many people wanted to believe me!”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You hate America, don't you?" she said. "That would be as silly as loving it," I said. "It's impossible for me to get emotional about it, because real estate doesn't interest me. It's no doubt a great flaw in my personality, but I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to the human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Drawn crudely in the dust of three window-panes were a swastika, a hammer and sickle, and the Stars and Stripes. I had drawn the three symbols weeks before, at the conclusion of an argument about patriotism with Kraft. I had given a hearty cheer for each symbol, demonstrating to Kraft the meaning of patriotism to, respectively, a Nazi, a Communist, and an American. "Hooray, hooray, hooray," I'd said.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that flickered out.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Generally speaking, espionage offers each spy an opportunity to go crazy in a way he finds irresistible.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing in this book is true.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We Bokonists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass by Bokonon "If you find your life tangled up with somebody else's life for no very logical reasons," writes Bokonon, "that person may be a member of your karass." At another point in The Books of Bokonon he tells us, "Man created the checkerboard; God created the karass." By that he means that a karass ignores national, institutional, occupational, familial, and class boundaries. It is as free form as an amoeba.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Busy, busy, busy.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end, And our God will take things back that He to us did lend. And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God, Why go right ahead and scold Him. He'll just smile and nod.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Peculiar Travel Suggestions are Dancing Lessons From God.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers — joined in the serious business of keeping our food, shelter, clothing and loved ones from combining with oxygen.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like all real heroes, Charley had a fatal flaw. He refused to believe that he had gonorrhea, whereas the truth was that he did.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He alienated his friends in the sciences by thanking them extravagantly for scientific advances he had read about in the recent newspapers and magazines, by assuring them, with a perfectly straight face, that life was getting better and better, thanks to scientific thinking.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We don't piss in your ashtrays, So please don't throw cigarettes in our urinals.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pretend to be good always, and even God will be fooled.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never knew a writer's wife who wasn't beautiful.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The village would never accept it. It has a policy of never accepting anything. As a happy consequence, it changes about as fast as the rules of chess.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world can't afford sex anymore." "Of course it can afford sex," said Billy. "All it can't afford anymore is reproduction." "Then why the laws?" "They're bad laws," said Billy. "If you go back through history, you'll find that the people who have been most eager to rule, to make the laws, to enforce the laws and to tell everybody exactly how God Almighty wants things here on earth—those people have forgiven themselves and their friends for anything and everything. But they have been absolutely disgusted and terrified by the natural sexuality of common men and women.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He faced the problem that complicates the lives of cannibals—namely: that a single victim cannot be used over and over.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had only two moods: one suspicious and self-pitying, the other arrogant and boastful. The first mood applied when he was losing money. The second mood applied when he was making it.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Billy coughed when the door was opened, and when he coughed he shit thin gruel. This was in accordance with the Third Law of Motion according to Sir Isaac Newton. This law tells us that for each reaction there is a reaction which is equal and opposite in direction. This can be useful in rocketry.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Derby described the incredible artificial weather that Earthlings sometimes create for other Earthlings when they don't want those other Earthlings to inhabit Earth any more.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles away from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes. Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes. And everyday my government gives me a count of corpses created by the military service in Vietnam. So it goes. My father died many years ago now — of natural causes. So it goes. He was a sweet man. He was a gun nut, too. He left me his guns. They rust.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poo-Tee-Weet?”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Things die. All things die.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All through the day I'm so confident. That's why I'm such a good salesman, you know? I have confidence, and I look like I have confidence, and that gives other people confidence.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Maybe God has let everybody who ever lived be reborn — so he or she can see how it ends. Even Pitecanthropus erectus and Australopithecus and Sinanthropus pekensis and the Neanderthalers are back on Earth — to see how it ends. They're all on Times Square — making change for peepshows. Or recruiting Marines.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know what gets me? … How everybody says "fuck" and "shit" all the time. I used to be scared shitless if I'd say "fuck" or "shit" in public, by accident. Now everybody says "fuck" and "shit", "fuck" and "shit" all the time. Something very big must have happened while we were out of the country.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The new heroism — put a village idiot into a pressure cooker, seal it up tight, and shoot him at the moon.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't lecture me on race relations. I don't have a molecule of prejudice. I've been in battle with every kind of man there is. I've been in bed with every kind of woman there is — from a Laplander to a Tierra del Fuegian. If I'd ever been to the South Pole, there'd be a hell of a lot of penguins who looked like me.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No grown woman is a fan of premature ejaculation.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have this theory about why men kill each other and break things. … Never mind. It's a dumb theory. I was going to say it was all sexual … but everything is sexual … but alcohol.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I was a naive young recruit in Spain, I used to wonder why soldiers bayoneted oil paintings, shot the noses off statues and defecated into grand pianos. I now understand: it was to teach civilians the deepest sort of respect for men in uniform — uncontrollable fear.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wars would be a lot better, I think, if guys would say to themselves sometimes "Jesus — I'm not going to do that to the enemy. That's too much.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This script, it seems to me, is the work of professionals who yearned to be as charming as inspired amateurs can sometimes be.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't like film. Film is too clankingly real, too permanent, too industrial for me. … 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 illusions. It makes them impossible. It's a bullying form of reality, like the model rooms in the furniture department of Bloomingdale's.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have become an enthusiast for the printed word again. I have to be that, I now understand, because I want to be a character in all of my works. I can do that in print. In a movie, somehow, the author always vanishes. Everything of mine which has been filmed so far has been one character short, and that character is me.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can have oodles of charm when I want to.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What do I myself think of this particular book? I feel lousy about it, but I always feel lousy about my books.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source