Clemens Vonnegut Quotes

Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live rationally and if they would contribute mutually to each others' welfare.
This world is not a vale of sorrows if you will recognize discriminatingly what is truly excellent in it; and if you will avail yourself of it for mutual happiness and well-being. Therefore, let us explain as often as possible, and particularly at the departure of life, that we base our faith on firm foundations, on Truth for putting into action our ideas which do not depend on fables and ideas which Science has long ago proven to be false. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

And then it developed that Campbell was not going to go unanswered after all. Poor old Derby, the doomed high school teacher, lumbered to his feet for what was probably the finest moment in his life. There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters. But old Derby was a character now. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

When he was with Finnerty he liked to pretend that he shared the man's fantastic and alternately brilliant or black inner thoughts - almost as though he were discontent with his own relative tranquility. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Literature is the only art in which the audience performs the score. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I wasn't scared (during his first at-bat). I just told them (Mo Vaughn & Kevin Mitchell') to give me all that hockey equipment (forearm pad & shin guard respectively). ~ Roger Clemens

Jesus
if Kilgore Trout could only write! Rosewater exclaimed. He had a point: Kilgore Trout's unpopularity was deserved. His prose was frightful. Only his ideas were good. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I froze. It was not guilt that froze me. I had taught myself never to feel guilt. It was not a ghastly sense of loss that froze me. I had taught myself to covet nothing. It was not a loathing of death that froze me. I had taught myself to think of death as a friend. It was not heartbroken rage against injustice that froze me. I had taught myself that a human being might as well look for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards and punishments that were fair. It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love. It was not the thought that God was cruel that froze me. I had taught myself never to expect anything from Him. What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I imagined two leather chairs near a fire in a paneled room, where two old soldiers could drink and talk. But she took us into the kitchen. She had put two straight-backed chairs at a kitchen table with a white porcelain top. That table top was screaming with reflected light from a two-hundred-watt bulb overhead. Mary had prepared an operating room. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The whole point of war is to put women everywhere in that condition. It's always men against women, with the men only pretending to fight among themselves. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Today we do. On other days we have wars as horrible as any you've ever seen or read about. There isn't anything we can do about them, so we simply don't look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments-like today at the zoo. Isn't this a nice moment?"
"Yes."
"That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones."
"Um," said Billy Pilgrim. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs. So people pretend there is drama where there is none. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

The secret ingredient in my books is, there has never been a villain. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand - passive resistance and open displays of contempt. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

But there's two kinds of work, kid, work and hard work. If you want to stand out, have something to sell, you got to do hard work. Pick out something impossible and do it, or be a bum the rest of your life. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Someday son all this will be yours. Father and son atop a garbage dump. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time, they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody. They may be teaching that still. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

You have spent most of the past sixteen or more years learning to read and write. People who can do those things well, as you can, are miracles and, in my opinion, entitle us to suspect that we may be civilized after all. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Fungi have as much right to life as I do. they know what they want, Bill. Damned if I do anymore. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

A kind of university - only nobody goes to it. There aren't any buildings, isn't any faculty. Everybody's in it and nobody's in it. It's like a cloud that everybody has given a little puff of mist to, and then the cloud does all the heavy thinking for everybody. I don't mean there's really a cloud. I just mean it's something like that. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, Skip, there's no sense in trying to explain it to you. All I can say is, there aren't any meetings. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Everything Rumfoord did he did with style, making all mankind look good. Everything Constant did he did in style - aggressively, loudly, childishly, wastefully - making himself and mankind look bad. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Some jerk infected the Internet with an outright lie. It shows how easy it is to do and how credulous people are. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

A lot of people were opposed to it. A lot of people were for it. I myself think about it as little as possible. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

What a fool I would have been to let self-respect interfere with my happiness! ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Where men had once howled and hacked at one another, and fought nip-and-tuck with nature as well, the machines hummed and whirred and clicked, and made parts for baby carriages and bottle caps, motorcycles and refrigerators, television sets and tricycles-the fruits of peace. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

He hit the ball so hard, I couldn't even turn around in time to see it go over the fence. ~ Roger Clemens

I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That's why we've got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I hear he liked flowers pretty well."
"Yes," said Annie, "he said they were the friends who always came back and never disappointed him."
"Out, Brief Candle ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I am an atheist (or at best a Unitarian who winds up in church quite a lot). ~ Kurt Vonnegut

A pissant does his best to make you feel like a boob all the time. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

See the cat? See the cradle? ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

This was in a country where everybody was expected to pay his own bills for everything, and one of the most expensive things a person could do was get sick. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Children get smashed for hours on some strictly limited aspect of the Great Big Everything, the Universe, such as water or snow or mud or colors or rocks. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I have been a writer since 1949. I am self-taught. I have no theories about writing that might help others. When I write, I simply become what I seemingly must become. I am six feet two and weigh nearly two hundred pounds and am badly coordinated, except when I swim. All that borrowed meat does the writing.
In the water I am beautiful. ~ Kurt Vonnegut