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Kurt Vonnegut

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Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world's champions.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Television
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
From Mother Night
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life, Philosophical
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.
From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
But people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awful truth. As the living legend of the cruel tyrant in the city and the gentle holy man in the jungle grew, so, too, did the happiness of the people grow. They were all employed full time as actors in a play they understood, that any human being anywhere could understand and applaud.
From Cat’s Cradle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
From Slaughterhouse-Five
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?
From Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War.
From God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.
From Mother Night
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?
From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Well finish your story anyway."

Where was I?"

The bubonic plague. The bulldozer was stalled by corpses."

Oh, yes. Anyway, one sleepless night I stayed up with Father while he worked. It was all we could do to find a live patient to treat. In bed after bed after bed we found dead people.

And Father started giggling," Castle continued.

He couldn't stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?" asked Castle.

Nope."

'Son,' my father said to me, 'someday this will all be yours.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.
From Jailbird
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for awhile after the Second World War. 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.

Another thing they taught was that no one was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, ‘You know – you never wrote a story with a villain in it.’

I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war.
From Slaughterhouse-Five
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm
From Hocus Pocus
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Success
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life, Philosophical
There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
From Breakfast of Champions
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life, Philosophical
Do you realize that all great literature — "Moby Dick," "Huckleberry Finn," "A Farewell to Arms," "The Scarlet Letter," "The Red Badge of Courage," "The Iliad and The Odyssey," "Crime and Punishment," the Bible, and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" — are all about what a bummer it is to be a ...human being?
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said, "You think your dad's a good chemist? They're turning soda crackers into meat in there. Can your dad do that?
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency'.
From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.
From Timequake
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I speak gibberish to the civilized world and it replies in kind.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world's champions.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Television
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
From Mother Night
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life, Philosophical
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.
From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
But people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awful truth. As the living legend of the cruel tyrant in the city and the gentle holy man in the jungle grew, so, too, did the happiness of the people grow. They were all employed full time as actors in a play they understood, that any human being anywhere could understand and applaud.
From Cat’s Cradle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
From Slaughterhouse-Five
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?
From Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War.
From God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.
From Mother Night
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?
From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Well finish your story anyway."

Where was I?"

The bubonic plague. The bulldozer was stalled by corpses."

Oh, yes. Anyway, one sleepless night I stayed up with Father while he worked. It was all we could do to find a live patient to treat. In bed after bed after bed we found dead people.

And Father started giggling," Castle continued.

He couldn't stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?" asked Castle.

Nope."

'Son,' my father said to me, 'someday this will all be yours.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.
From Jailbird
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for awhile after the Second World War. 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.

Another thing they taught was that no one was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, ‘You know – you never wrote a story with a villain in it.’

I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war.
From Slaughterhouse-Five
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm
From Hocus Pocus
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Success
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life, Philosophical
There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
From Breakfast of Champions
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life, Philosophical
Do you realize that all great literature — "Moby Dick," "Huckleberry Finn," "A Farewell to Arms," "The Scarlet Letter," "The Red Badge of Courage," "The Iliad and The Odyssey," "Crime and Punishment," the Bible, and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" — are all about what a bummer it is to be a ...human being?
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said, "You think your dad's a good chemist? They're turning soda crackers into meat in there. Can your dad do that?
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency'.
From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.
From Timequake
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I speak gibberish to the civilized world and it replies in kind.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world's champions.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Television
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
From Mother Night
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life, Philosophical
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.
From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
But people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awful truth. As the living legend of the cruel tyrant in the city and the gentle holy man in the jungle grew, so, too, did the happiness of the people grow. They were all employed full time as actors in a play they understood, that any human being anywhere could understand and applaud.
From Cat’s Cradle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
From Slaughterhouse-Five
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?
From Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War.
From God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.
From Mother Night
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?
From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Well finish your story anyway."

Where was I?"

The bubonic plague. The bulldozer was stalled by corpses."

Oh, yes. Anyway, one sleepless night I stayed up with Father while he worked. It was all we could do to find a live patient to treat. In bed after bed after bed we found dead people.

And Father started giggling," Castle continued.

He couldn't stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?" asked Castle.

Nope."

'Son,' my father said to me, 'someday this will all be yours.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.
From Jailbird
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for awhile after the Second World War. 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.

Another thing they taught was that no one was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, ‘You know – you never wrote a story with a villain in it.’

I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war.
From Slaughterhouse-Five
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm
From Hocus Pocus
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Success
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life, Philosophical
There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
From Breakfast of Champions
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life, Philosophical
Do you realize that all great literature — "Moby Dick," "Huckleberry Finn," "A Farewell to Arms," "The Scarlet Letter," "The Red Badge of Courage," "The Iliad and The Odyssey," "Crime and Punishment," the Bible, and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" — are all about what a bummer it is to be a ...human being?
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said, "You think your dad's a good chemist? They're turning soda crackers into meat in there. Can your dad do that?
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency'.
From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.
From Timequake
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I speak gibberish to the civilized world and it replies in kind.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
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