Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was an American writer known for his satirical literary style, as well as the science-fiction elements in much of his work. Profoundly inspirational Kurt Vonnegut quotes will encourage growth in life, make you wiser and broaden your perspective.
If you’re searching for quotes from great authors that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of profound Leo Tolstoy quotes, amazing Lewis Carroll quotes and top Neil Gaiman quotes.
Famous Kurt Vonnegut Quotes
We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap. Kurt Vonnegut
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Kurt Vonnegut
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand. Kurt Vonnegut
New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become. 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
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae. Kurt Vonnegut
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. Kurt Vonnegut
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything. Kurt Vonnegut
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. Kurt Vonnegut
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. Kurt Vonnegut
If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. Kurt Vonnegut
There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look. Kurt Vonnegut
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
If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own. Kurt Vonnegut
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. Kurt Vonnegut
All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Kurt Vonnegut
And I asked myself about the present how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep. Kurt Vonnegut
Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn. 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
I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government. Kurt Vonnegut
How nice to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive. Kurt Vonnegut
Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them. Kurt Vonnegut
Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, It might have been. Kurt Vonnegut
I get up at 7:30 and work four hours a day. Nine to twelve in the morning, five to six in the evening. Businessmen would achieve better results if they studied human metabolism. No one works well eight hours a day. No one ought to work more than four hours. Kurt Vonnegut
And 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. Kurt Vonnegut
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. 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
One of the things that I tell beginning writers is this If you describe a landscape, or a cityscape, or a seascape, always be sure to put a human figure somewhere in the scene. Why? Because readers are human beings, mostly interested in human beings. People are humanists. Most of them are humanists, that is. Kurt Vonnegut
Dear future generations Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum. Kurt Vonnegut
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? 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
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. Kurt Vonnegut
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
Science is magic that works. Kurt Vonnegut
Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why. Kurt Vonnegut
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. Kurt Vonnegut
Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead. Kurt Vonnegut
Human beings will be happier not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia. Kurt Vonnegut
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different. 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
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. Kurt Vonnegut
If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy. Kurt Vonnegut
1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them. Kurt Vonnegut
Oh, sure, we have another world war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders this time? 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. Kurt Vonnegut
The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal. Kurt Vonnegut
The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest. Kurt Vonnegut
Evolution can go to hell as far as I am concerned. What a mistake we are. We have mortally wounded this sweet life supporting planet the only one in the whole Milky Way with a century of transportation whoopee. Kurt Vonnegut
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. Kurt Vonnegut
This country is being managed to death, being public related to death. Kurt Vonnegut
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. Kurt Vonnegut
I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me. Kurt Vonnegut
I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. Kurt Vonnegut
I am honorary President of the American Humanist Society, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that utterly functionless capacity. We Humanists behave as well as we can, without any rewards or punishments in an Afterlife. Kurt Vonnegut
The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected. Kurt Vonnegut
One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand. Kurt Vonnegut
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? Kurt Vonnegut
Younger scientists are extremely sensitive to the moral implications of all they do. Kurt Vonnegut
All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. Kurt Vonnegut
There is never a shortage anywhere of lawyers eager to attack the First Amendment, as though it were nothing more than a clause in a lease from a crooked slumlord. 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
It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead. Kurt Vonnegut
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. Kurt Vonnegut
I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse all my fraternity brothers were engineers. Kurt Vonnegut
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. Kurt Vonnegut
People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore. Kurt Vonnegut
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything. Kurt Vonnegut
I am from a family of artists. Here I am, making a living in the arts. It has not been a rebellion. It’s as though I had taken over the family Esso station. Kurt Vonnegut
A sane person to an insane society must appear insane. Kurt Vonnegut
I think a lot of people, including me, clammed up when a civilian asked about battle, about war. It was fashionable. One of the most impressive ways to tell your war story is to refuse to tell it, you know. Civilians would then have to imagine all kinds of deeds of derring do. Kurt Vonnegut
Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile. Kurt Vonnegut
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut
When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different. Kurt Vonnegut
Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy. Kurt Vonnegut
Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why. Kurt Vonnegut
Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn’t it such a relief to have somebody say that? Kurt Vonnegut
I asked myself about the present how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep. Kurt Vonnegut
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. Kurt Vonnegut
Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. 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. Kurt Vonnegut
And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It’s good for you. Kurt Vonnegut
This is Sunday, and the question arises, what’ll I start tomorrow? Kurt Vonnegut
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
If you can do a half assed job of anything, you’re a one eyed man in a kingdom of the blind. Kurt Vonnegut
As for literary criticism in general I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split. kurt Vonnegut
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
I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead. Kurt Vonnegut
To whom it may concern: It is springtime. It is late afternoon. Kurt Vonnegut
Anyway because we are readers, we don’t have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis at any time of night or day. Kurt Vonnegut
Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John. Kurt Vonnegut
Where do I get my ideas from? You might as well have asked that of Beethoven. He was goofing around in Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden this stuff came gushing out of him. It was music. I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out. It was disgust with civilization. Kurt Vonnegut
I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours. Kurt Vonnegut
There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look. Kurt Vonnegut
People need good lies. There are too many bad ones. Kurt Vonnegut
Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer. Kurt Vonnegut
Science sent the Hubble telescope out into space, so it could capture light and the absence thereof, from the very beginning of time. And the telescope really did that. So now we know that there was once absolutely nothing, such a perfect nothing that there wasn’t even nothing or once. Kurt Vonnegut
I felt after I finished Slaughterhouse Five that I didn’t have to write at all anymore if I didn’t want to. It was the end of some sort of career. I don’t know why, exactly. I suppose that flowers, when they’re through blooming, have some sort of awareness of some purpose having been served. Flowers didn’t ask to be flowers and I didn’t ask to be me. At the end of Slaughterhouse Five. I had a shutting off feeling that I had done what I was supposed to do and everything was ok. Kurt Vonnegut
What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law. Kurt Vonnegut
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
The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest. Kurt Vonnegut
It is just an illusion here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever. Kurt Vonnegut
I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment following some bewildering experiences as an infantryman and later as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. The science of the Study of Man has been extremely satisfactory from that personal standpoint. Kurt Vonnegut
Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne. Kurt Vonnegut
I think I belong to America’s last generation of novelists. Novelists will come one by one from now on, not in seeming families, and will perhaps write only one or two novels, and let it go at that. Kurt Vonnegut
Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think that money was so valuable? Kurt Vonnegut
As a Humanist, I love science. I hate superstition, which could never have given us A bombs. Kurt Vonnegut
You can’t just eat good food. You’ve got to talk about it too. And you’ve got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food. Kurt Vonnegut
Over the years, people I’ve met have often asked me what I’m working on, and I’ve usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden. Kurt Vonnegut
All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old fashioned values, and I say let’s get back to the good old fashioned First Amendment of the good old fashioned Constitution of the United States and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death! Kurt Vonnegut
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
