Kurt Vonnegut

“I'm afraid I don't read as much as I ought to," said Maggie."We're all afraid of something," Trout replied. "I'm afraid of cancer and rats and Doberman pinschers.”

“I think, therefore I am, therefore I am photographable.”

“...all subjects do not reside in neat little compartments, but are continuous and inseparable from the one big subject we have been put on Earth to study, which is life itself.”

“No, no -- no pity, please," said Rumfoord, stepping back, afraid of being touched. "It's a very good thing, really. I'll be seeing lots of new things, a lot of new creatures." He tried to smile. "One gets tired, you know, being caught up in the monotonous clockwork of the Solar System." He laughed harshly. "After all," he said, "it isn't as though I were dying or something. Everything that ever was always will be, and everything that ever will be always was." He shook his head quickly, and cast away a tear he hadn't known was on his eyelid.”

“There's one consolation," said Bee. "We're all used up. We'll never be of any use to him again.”

“Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.”

“Dr. Breed keeps telling me the main thing with Dr. Hoenikker was truth.”“You don’t seem to agree.”“I don’t know whether I agree or not. I just have trouble understandinghow truth, all by itself, could be enough for a person.”

“Live by the foma(Harmless untruths) that make you braveand kind and healthy and happy.”

“My life is nothing but room for you,’ I said. ‘It could never be filled by anyone but you.”

“I was surprised and mawkishly heartbroken. I am always moved by that seldom-used treasure, the sweetness with which most girls can sing.”

“No matter what is doing the creating, I have to say that the giraffe and the rhinoceros are ridiculous.”

“The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not.”

“She died believing in the Trinity and Heaven and Hell and all the rest of it. I'm so glad. Why? Because I loved her.”

“Muszáj törődnöm vele. Valóságos fizikai fájdalmat okoz nekem, ha látom, hogy valamit rosszul csinálnak, amikor pedig olyan könnyen lehet jól is csinálni.”

“Then again, I am a monopolar depressive descended from monopolar depressives. That's how come I write so good.”

“There is this amazing scene in the story: A boy and a girl, explaining the rules of Bingo, become the center of the Universe for Nazis in full regalia, including a gaga Adolf Hitler.”

“Look at him! That's life, according to the medical profession. Isn't life wonderful?”

“The thing about money is," said Ben, "you can't be polite to it. Leave something suspicious to say, and it'll say it...Leave something greedy to say, and it'll say it...Leave something scary to say, and it'll say it."--"Money Talks”

“Money began talking to Ben again--not big money this time, but little money. It niggled and nagged and carped and whined at him, as full of fears and bitterness as a spinster witch.--"Money Talks”

“You got troubles, I got troubles--everybody's got troubles, whether they've got a lot of money or a little money or no money. When you get right down to it, I guess love and friendship and doing good really are the big things."--"Money Talks”

“Keep breathing," said Ben. "That's the big thing for now."--"Money Talks”

“Her pleasure went on and on, and so did Ben's. Ben could almost smell the gardenia, could almost see her pinning it on, her hands all thumbs."You're selling your store?" she said.There was radiance between them now. There were overtones and undertones to everything they said. The talk itself was formal, lifeless.--"Money Talks”

“(speaking of insecurity)"It's broken greater spirits than ours, and robbed the world of God knows how much beauty. I've seen it happen more times than I like to think about."--"$10,000 A Year, Easy”

“People who sell bolts and nuts and locomotives and frozen orange juice make billions, while the people who struggle to bring a little beauty into the world, give life a little meaning, they starve.--"$10,000 A Year, Easy”

“I sing of happiness, he says, and insecurity shows through--poisons it. I sing of unhappiness, and it spoils that, too, because my real unhappiness isn't great or noble but cheap--money unhappiness.--"$10,000 a Year, Easy”

“They made a science out of people?" she said. "What a crazy science that must be."--"Mr. Z”

“The lonely old soul took to Bomar like a cannibal to a fat Baptist missionary.--"Bomar”

“There Bomar is, wherever he is, spending a fortune every day on liquor and beautiful women and expensive playthings, when he could find peace of mind right here with us, for a mere twenty cents.--"Bomar”

“There were no windows in the Stockholders' Records Section of the Treasurer's Department of the American Forge and Foundry Company. But the soft, sweet music from the loudspeaker on the green wall by the clock, music that increased the section's productivity by 3 percent, kept pace with the seasons, and provided windows of a sort for the staff.--"Bomar”

“As I spoke of another's love and looked into the wide, blue windows of her soul, a rich, insistent yearning flooded my senses.--"Tango”

“My gosh," I said, "another human being.""You'll never know how human," she said."Maybe I will," I said. "I could try."I did try, and I do try, and I give you the toast of a happy man: May the warm springs of the girl pool never run dry.--"Girl Pool”

“(a man in love speaking)"I don't notice much of anything anymore but Marie." He laid his hand on his chest. "This force," he said, "it just does with you what it wants to do with you, makes you feel what it wants to make you feel."--"Tango”

“Q: What is wrong with the world?A: Everybody pays attention to pictures of things. Nobody pays attention to things themselves.”

“I hear he liked flowers pretty well.""Yes," said Annie, "he said they were the friends who always came back and never disappointed him."--"Out, Brief Candle”

“Hawkins was eloquent and poetic--but most of all he was exquisitely sensitive to a woman's moods. He sensed it when Annie was depressed, though she never told him she was, and he would say just the right thing to cheer her. And when she was elated, he nourished her elation, and kept it alive for weeks instead of fleeting minutes.--"Out, Brief Candle”

“Oh, Mr. Trout...teach us to sing and dance and laugh and cry. We've tried to survive so long on money and sex and envy and real estate and football and basketball and automobiles and television and alcohol -- on sawdust and broken glass!”

“A sacred picture of Saint Anthony alone is one vertical, unwavering band of light. If a cockroach were near him, or a cocktail waitress, the picture would be two such bands of light. Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is just dead machinery.”

“If we had fooled her last night, I would have considered my life at a satisfactory end, with all debts paid. I would have wound up on skid row, or maybe I would have been a suicide." He shrugged and smiled sadly. "Now," he said, "if I'm ever going to square things with her, I've got to believe in a Heaven, I've got to believe she can look down and see me, and I've got to be a big success for her to see”

“But when I roamed New York City, knowing so much and capable of speaking so nicely, and yet so lonely, and often hungry and cold, I learned the joke at the core of American self-improvement: knowledge was so much junk to be processed one way or another at great universities. The real treasure the great universities offered was a lifelong membership in a respected artificial extended family.”

“I will say that I still can't get over how women are shaped, and that I will go to my grave wanting to pet their butts and boobs.”

“When things go well for days on end, it is an hilarious accident.”

“If you want to kind of try what I do, take life seriously but none of the people in it.”

“What kind of a man would turn his daughter into an outboard motor?”

“So I guess maybe that’ll be the next step in evolution – to break clean like those first amphibians who crawled out of the mud into the sunshine, and who never did go back to the sea.”

“The mind is the only thing about human beings that’s worth anything. Why does it have to be tied to a bag of skin, blood, hair, meat, bones and tubes? No wonder people can’t get anything done, stuck for life with a parasite that has to be stuffed with food and protected from weather and germs all the time. And the fool thing wears out anyway – no matter how much you stuff and protect it.”

“The fact remains that I am stuck with the risk of being me. I am compelled, therefor, to spread the risk around a little, if I can.”

“Without acquainting me with the language or the literature or the oral family histories which my ancestors had loved, they volunteered to make me ignorant and rootless as proof of their patriotism.”

“I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a color photograph of God Almighty—and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.”

“People should be changed by world wars," I said, "else what are world wars for?”

“And how simple, how sublimely familiar was the tale her body told.”