“I congratulate you people on being in the raging mainstream of the arts. It is commercial artists like myself who operate in the backwaters. I inhabit still, tepid waters clogged with dollar bills. I never see people. I've forgotten all about them.Guard yourself at all times. A lot of people believe that beauty is some kind of conspiracy -- along with friendly laughter and peace.Cheers --(Signed)Kurt Vonnegut”

“A lot of people were opposed to it. A lot of people were for it. I myself think about it as little as possible.”

“People talk a lot about all the homosexuals there are to see in Greenwich Village, but it was all the neuters that caught my eye that day. These were my people -- as used as I was to wanting love from nowhere, as certain as I was that almost anything desirable was likely to be booby-trapped.”

“Kurt Vonnegut speaking to John Irving while Irving was administering the Heimlich maneuver in response to Vonnegut's uncontrollable coughing..."John,stop- I am not choking. I have emphysema.”

“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.”

“Is this some kind of joke?""That's for me to know and you to find out.""Maybe you think it's funny to put up signs about people who want to commit suicide.""Are you about to?""And what if I was?""I wouldn't tell you the gorgeous reasons I have discovered for going on living.""What would you do?""I'd ask you to name the rock-bottom price you'd charge to go on living for just one more week.”

“Honest to God, Bill, the way things are going, all I can think of is that I'm a character in a book by somebody who wants to write about somebody who suffers all the time.”