“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Kurt Vonnegut
“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano
“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
Kurt Vonnegut
“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”
Kurt Vonnegut
“The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.”
Kurt Vonnegut
“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, “It might have been.”
Kurt Vonnegut
“And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.
So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”
Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got 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
“And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
“Here I am cleaning shit off of practically everything.”
Kurt Vonnegut (attributed to his sister)
I didn’t appreciate Vonnegut, until I allowed myself to believe/recognize that everything I was ever told, taught, or believed, was utter propaganda and bullshit.
Now I try and read him as often as I can. The man had a beautiful mind and wicked sense of humor.