“(Socialist Powers Hapgood)...had become an official in the CIO. There had been some sort of dust-up on a picket line, and he was testifying about it in court, and the judge stops everything and asks him, "Mr. Hapgwood, here you are, you're a graduate of Harvard. why would anyone with your advantages choose the life than you have?" Hapgood answered the judge: "Why, because of the Sermon on the Mount, sir.”

“Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?" "That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?""Yes." Billy, in fact had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it. "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”

“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 .”

“Future civilizations - better civilizations than this one - are going to judge all men by the extent to which they've been artists. You and I, if some future archaeologist finds our works miraculously preserved in some city dump, will be judged by the quality of our creations. Nothing else about us will matter.”

“- Why me?- That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?- Yes.- Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”

“Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?" "Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it. "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”

“There was no question about it- the girl in the photograph was staggeringly beautiful. She was Miss Canal Zone, a runner-up in the Miss Universe Contest -- and in fact far more beautiful than the winner of the contests. Her beauty had frightened the judges.”