Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

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

I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’

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.

So it goes.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.

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

I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it’s a very poor scheme for survival.

Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.’

All this happened, more or less.

It’s the emptiest and yet the fullest of all human messages: ‘Good-bye.’

The truth can be very funny indeed.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

I asked my wife, ‘Where do you want to go for our anniversary?’ She said, ‘I want to go somewhere I’ve never been before.’ I said, ‘Try the kitchen.’

Science is magic that works.

We have to continuously be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.

We must each find our own meaning in the midst of temporary chaos.

I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found.

Every passing day I am more convinced that the salvation of the world lies in women.

The weirdest thing about a mind is that you can have one completely different from somebody else’s, but you can never be entirely sure you have one at all.

I can say things with my hands that I couldn’t say any other way.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

We could have saved the Earth, but we were too damned cheap.

I think human beings are deeply religious when there is no hope whatsoever, none.

Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Make love when you can. It’s good for you.

If you can do no good, at least do no harm.

Of course, all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work – the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside – the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don’t show their effect all at once.

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’

Dear Future Generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.

There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at the same time.

I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.

Teaching is a very intimate act of nurturing, encouragement, and challenge. It’s a creative process where profound connections are made between teacher, student, and the subject being taught.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

There are fairly good odds that one of the greatest pieces of music on Earth was created by somebody who had no money for breakfast.

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move.

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.

How nice–to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

We are all traffickers at some level.

I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’

The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you.

Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, and don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

I don’t paint anymore. I get into bed and the shadows on the ceiling come down.

The second rule is that the accidents in life are as important as the planned experiments.