Inspirational Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

Inspirational Quotations by Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922–2007) was an American novelist and short-story writer. This major voice in American literature was celebrated for his insightful, satirical depictions of the horrors and the ironies of 20th-century civilization.

Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Vonnegut served in the air force in World War II, was detained by the Germans, and endured the bombing of Dresden in 1945. He used this experience in his most famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade (1969.)

Much of Vonnegut’s literature is characterized by a fatalistic worldview that embraces modern humanist values. Highlighting the comic absurdity of the human condition, he frequently portrayed characters who search for meaning and order in a meaningless and disordered world.

Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano (1952,) depicts a New York factory town whose mechanized make-up turns its workers and scientists into near-robots. Other notable novels include Cat’s Cradle (1963,) Breakfast of Champions (1973,) Slapstick (1976,) Jailbird (1979,) Deadeye Dick (1983,) and Hocus Pocus (1991.)

Vonnegut’s short stories were collected in Welcome to the Monkey House (1968.) He also published two collections of essays and speeches, Fates Worse than Death (1991) and A Man Without a Country (2005.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Kurt Vonnegut

Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Travel

The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn’t really going to do very much with his life anyway. The example usually is: “he wasn’t going to compose Beethoven’s Fifth.”
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: The Military

I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine.
—Kurt Vonnegut

There’s only one me, and I’m stuck with him.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Self-love

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
—Kurt Vonnegut

We are all what we pretend to be, but, we had better be very careful what we pretend.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: People

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Class, Age

There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nutcases want to be president.
—Kurt Vonnegut

We are what we imagine ourselves to be.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Imagination

I want to stay 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

We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. Only in superstition is there hope. If you want to become a friend of civilization, then become an enemy of the truth and a fanatic for harmless balderdash.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Superstition

If somebody says, “I love you,” to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol-holder requires? “I love you, too. “
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Love

The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Politicians, Politics

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Being True to Yourself, Appearance

Mark Twain was so good with crowds that he became, in competition with singers and dancers and actors and acrobats, one of the most popular performers of his time. It is so unusual, and so psychologically unlikely, too, for a great writer to be a great performer, too. … .
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Writing

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Carpe-diem, Information

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Laughter, Aging, Disappointment

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Dancing, Dance

Being American is to eat a lot of beef steak, and boy, we’ve got a lot more beef steak than any other country, and that’s why you ought to be glad you’re an American. And people have started looking at these big hunks of bloody meat on their plates, you know, and wondering what on earth they think they’re doing.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: America

People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Foresight, Communication

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion … . I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
—Kurt Vonnegut

You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction if you are not depressed
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Writers

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! Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Faith

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.
—Kurt Vonnegut

Thinking doesn’t seem to help very much. The human brain is too high-powered to have many practical uses in this particular universe.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Mind, The Mind

We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.
—Kurt Vonnegut

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Loneliness, Community

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: World

It was a thunderingly beautiful experience—voluptuous, sexual, dangerous, and expensive as hell.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: Space

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Topics: History