Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

1922 – 2007

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (11 November 1922 – 11 April 2007) was an American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction.

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Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon!

To the as-yet-unborn, to all innocent wisps of undifferentiated nothingness: Watch out for life.
I have caught life. I have come down with life. I was a wisp of undifferentiated nothingness, and then a little peephole opened quite suddenly. Light and sound poured in. Voices began to describe me and my surroundings. Nothing they said could be appealed.

In case you haven’t noticed, we … dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class. Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything. Piece of cake.

I have this theory about why men kill each other and break things. … Never mind. It's a dumb theory. I was going to say it was all sexual … but everything is sexual … but alcohol.

All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.

Just because you can read, write and do a little math, doesn't mean that you're entitled to conquer the universe.

People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.

Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.

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!

Make love when you can. It's good for you.

High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.

Ta ta and adios. Or, as Saint Peter said to me with a sly wink, when I told him I was on my last-round trip to Paradise: “See you later, Alligator.”

War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.

Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.

She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.