Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Karl Marx got a bum rap. All he was trying to do was figure out how to take care of a whole lot of people. Of course, socialism is just “evil” now. It’s completely discredited, supposedly, by the collapse of the Soviet Union. I can’t help noticing that my grandchildren are heavily in hock to communist China now, which is evidently a whole lot better at business than we are. You talk about the collapse of communism or the Soviet Union. My goodness, this country collapsed in 1929. I mean it crashed, big time, and capitalism looked like a very poor idea.

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.

We could have saved [the Earth] but we were too damned cheap.

All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.

No good at life, but very funny sometimes with the commentary.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

He held up his watch to sunlight, letting it drink in the wherewithal that was to solar watches what money was to Earth men.

These unhappy agents found what had already been found in abundance on Earth—a nightmare of meaningless without end. The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.
Outwardness lost, at last, its imagined attractions.
Only inwardness remained to be explored.
Only the human soul remained terra incognita.
This was the beginning of goodness and wisdom.

If your brains were dynamite there wouldn't be enough to blow your hat off.

And I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.

“You finally fell in love, I see,” said Salo.
“Only an Earthling year ago,” said Constant. “It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

How nice — to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

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

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.