01c. 1964 AD1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
03c. 1964 ADMaturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
04c. 1964 ADHere is a lesson in creative writing.First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding.For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding.We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding.If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
05c. 1964 ADNo wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's . . ." "And?" "No damn cat, and no damn cradle.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
06c. 1964 ADSometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so. By the same token, though, I suppose that boulders and mountains and moons could be accused of being a little too phlegmatic.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
07c. 1964 ADIf you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
09c. 1964 ADWell finish your story anyway."Where was I?"The bubonic plague. The bulldozer was stalled by corpses."Oh, yes. Anyway, one sleepless night I stayed up with Father while he worked. It was all we could do to find a live patient to treat. In bed after bed after bed we found dead people.And Father started giggling," Castle continued.He couldn't stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?" asked Castle.Nope."'Son,' my father said to me, 'someday this will all be yours.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
10c. 1964 ADAnyway—because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next—and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis—at any time of night or day.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
11c. 1964 ADThere's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
12c. 1964 ADI speak gibberish to the civilized world and it replies in kind.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
13c. 1964 ADUsually when people talk about the trickle-down theory, it has to do with economics. The richer people at the top of a society become, supposedly, the more wealth there is to trickle down to the people below. It never really works out that way, of course, because if there are 2 things people at the top can't stand, they have to be leakage and overflow.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
15c. 1964 ADNothing is generous. New knowledge is a valuable commodity. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we are.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
16c. 1964 ADThe planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy, by and large.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
17c. 1964 ADWhat he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
18c. 1964 ADBut people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awful truth. As the living legend of the cruel tyrant in the city and the gentle holy man in the jungle grew, so, too, did the happiness of the people grow. They were all employed full time as actors in a play they understood, that any human being anywhere could understand and applaud.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
19c. 1964 ADShe was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
20c. 1964 ADMusic is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
21c. 1964 ADIt appeared to the Elders that the people here would believe anything about themselves, no matter how preposterous, as long as it was flattering. To make sure of this, they performed an experiment. They put the idea into Earthlings' heads that the whole Universe had been created by one big animal who looked just like them. He sat on a throne with a lot of less fancy thrones all around him. When people died they got to sit on those other thrones forever because they were such close relatives of the Creator.The people down here just ate that up!Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
22c. 1964 ADEarthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
23c. 1964 ADI still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
24c. 1964 ADPerhaps some people really are born unhappy. I surely hope not. Speaking for my sister and myself: We were born with the capacity and determination to be utterly happy all the time. Perhaps even in this we were freaks. Hi ho.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
