01c. 1950 ADBe aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live rationally and if they would contribute mutually to each others' welfare.This world is not a vale of sorrows if you will recognize discriminatingly what is truly excellent in it; and if you will avail yourself of it for mutual happiness and well-being. Therefore, let us explain as often as possible, and particularly at the departure of life, that we base our faith on firm foundations, on Truth for putting into action our ideas which do not depend on fables and ideas which Science has long ago proven to be false.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
02c. 1950 ADI thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a colour photograph of God Almighty — and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable.What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
03c. 1950 ADAnd on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
04c. 1950 ADI am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
05c. 1950 ADA book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
06c. 1950 ADThere isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
07c. 1950 ADBy reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This is to me is a miracle.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
08c. 1950 ADReading a novel, War and Peace for example, is no Catnap. Because a novel is so long, reading one is like being married forever to somebody nobody knows or cares about.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
09c. 1950 AD[Books] were devices as crassly practical for storing or transmitting language, as the latest Silicon Valley miracles. But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our mind and souls, in a spiritual adventure.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
10c. 1950 ADI hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
11c. 1950 ADI concluded that the best thing for me and for those around me was to want nothing, to be enthusiastic about nothing, to be as unmotivated as possible, in fact, so that I would never again hurt anyone.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
12c. 1950 ADOr they'll talk about fear, which we used to call politics- job politics, social politics, government politicsKurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
13c. 1950 ADThere are plenty of good reasons for fights," I said, "but no good reason to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive."It's that part of an imbecile," I said, "that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
14c. 1950 ADIn the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely."Everything must have a purpose?" asked God."Certainly," said man."Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.And He went away.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
15c. 1950 ADWhat should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
16c. 1950 ADSordid things, for the most part, are what make human beings, my father included, move. That's what it is to be human, I'm afraid.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
17c. 1950 ADAnd here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: "Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity. "The ideas Earthlings held didn't matter for hundreds of thousands of years, since they couldn't do much about them anyway. Ideas might as well be badges as anything."They even had a saying about the futility of ideas: 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.' "And then Earthlings discovered tools. Suddenly agreeing with friends could be a form of suicide or worse. But agreements went on, not for the sake of common sense or decency or self-preservation, but for friendliness."Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead. And even when they built computers to do some thinking for them, they designed them not so much for wisdom as for friendliness. So they were doomed. Homicidal beggars could ride.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
18c. 1950 ADI have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
19c. 1950 ADI do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays. But they are murdered children all the same.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
20c. 1950 ADUnfortunately, that still leaves plenty of Americans who don't read much or think much -- who will still be extremely useful in unjust wars. We are sick about that. We did the best we could.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
21c. 1950 ADAfter the thing went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb, a scientist turned to Father and said, 'Science has now known sin.' And do you know what Father said? He said, 'What is sin?Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
22c. 1950 ADThat’s the attractive thing about war,” said Rosewater. “Absolutely everybody gets a little something.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
23c. 1950 ADThe human beings also passed canteens, which guards would fill with water. When food came in, the human beings were quiet and trusting and beautiful. They shared.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
24c. 1950 ADAmerican planes full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation. The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires gathered them into cylindrical steel containers and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans though and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France though German fighters came up again made everything and everybody as good as new. When the bombers got back to their base the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America where factories were operating night and day dismantling the cylinders separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground to hide them cleverly so they would never hurt anybody ever again.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
