Kurt Vonnegut was an American author, essayist and novelist known for his science-fiction elements and satirical literary style. He published five plays, three short stories, five fiction works and 14 novels in his writing career that spanned over 20 years. Cat's Cradle, Player Piano and Breakfast of Champions were two of its best works. The darkly satirical Slaughterhouse-five was the bestseller of 1969. The writer of great characters was a bit of a character himself. A patron of counterculture, Vonnegut wrote great books, won several hearts and did some weird stuff. He graduated from Cornell University in early 1940s. Thereafter, he was enlisted for the U.S. army. The army sent him to study engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Having fought in the Battle of the Bulge, Vonnegut was captured as a war prisoner. After his release, he began his professional career in writing. It's surprising that Kurt graded his novels to evaluate his writing skills. Being a hardcore supporter of anti-censorship movement, Vonnegut's revolutionary ideas, coarse language and objectionable scene in Slaughterhouse-five stirred up several controversies in the society. His book was banned and challenged in different areas. To honor his literary talent, astronomer Charles W. Juels-- a discoverer of several asteroids named am asteroid in Vonnegut's name on his 77th birthday. We have collected some of most celebrated quotes from Kurt Vonnegut's various works. Presenting some life altering quotes by Kurt Vonnegut that will change the way you see it.
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.
Kurt Vonnegut
And so it goes...
Kurt Vonnegut
Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
Kurt Vonnegut
And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.
Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
Kurt Vonnegut
Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.
Kurt Vonnegut
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
Kurt Vonnegut
The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.
Kurt Vonnegut
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.
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.
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 one time.
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'.
I wanted all things
To seem to make some sense,
So we could all be happy, yes,
Instead of tense.
And I made up lies
So that they all fit nice,
And I made this sad world
A par-a-dise.
I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did'.
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.
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
Just because you can read, write and do a little math, doesn't mean that you're entitled to conquer the universe.
Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.
No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious & charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.
Maturity...is knowing what your limitations are...Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.
There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.
The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody. Thank you for using me, even though I didn't want to be used by anybody.
