01c. 1950 ADThe nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
02c. 1950 ADIt was a war of reason against barbarism, supposedly, with the issues at stake on such a high plane that most of our feverish fighters had no idea why they were fighting—other than that the enemy was a bunch of bastards.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
03c. 1950 ADHe didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
04c. 1950 ADAs for national greatness: It is probably true that all nations are great and even holy at the time of death. The Biafrans had never fought before. They fought well this time. They will never fight again. They will never play Finlandia on an ancient marimba again. Peace.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
05c. 1950 ADI am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
06c. 1950 ADAnd how should we behave during this Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don't already have one.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
07c. 1950 ADDuring the Vietnam War, every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
08c. 1950 ADHe dabbed at his tuxedo with a damp rag, and the fungi came away easily. "Hate to do this, Bill," he said of the fungi he was murdering. "Fungi have as much right to life as I do. they know what they want, Bill. Damned if I do anymore."Then he thought about what Bill himself might want. It was easy to guess. "Bill," he said, "I like you so much, and I am such a big shot in the Universe, that I will make your three biggest wishes come true." He opened the door of the cage, something Bill couldn't have done in a thousand years.Bill flew over to the windowsill. He put his little shoulder against the glass. there was just one layer of glass between Bill and the great out-of-doors. Although Trough was in the storm window business, he had no storm windows on his own abode."Your second wish is about to come true," said Trout, and he again did something which Bill could never have done. he opened the window. But the opening of the window was such an alarming business to the parakeet that he flew back to his cage and hopped inside.Trout closed the door of the cage and latched it. "That's the most intelligent use of three wishes I ever heard of," he told the bird. "You made sure you'd still have something worth wishing for--to get out of the cage.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
10c. 1950 ADThe name of the new religion," said Rumfoord, "is The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
11c. 1950 ADNo matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious & charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
12c. 1950 ADThanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
13c. 1950 ADIf you actually are an educated, thinking person, you will not be welcome in Washington, D.C. I know a couple of bright seventh graders who would not be welcome in Washington D.C.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
14c. 1950 ADMany years ago I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
15c. 1950 ADThere is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
16c. 1950 ADBut I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got here. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these games going on that could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the crazymaking games going on today are love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf, and girls' basketball.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
17c. 1950 ADPeople are hated a lot of places. Claire pointed out in her letter that Americans, in being hated, were simply paying the normal penalty for being people, and that they were foolish to think they should somehow be exempted from that penalty.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
18c. 1950 ADSo, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
19c. 1950 ADHer face ... was a one-of-a-kind, a surprising variation on a familiar theme - a variation that made observers think, Yes - that would be another very nice way for people to look. What Beatrice had done with her face, actually, was what any plain girl could do. She overlaid it with dignity, suffering, intelligence, and a piquant dash of bitchiness.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
20c. 1950 ADHe looked around at the perfectly white world, felt the wet kisses of the snowflakes, pondered hidden meanings in the pale yellow streetlights that shone in a world so whitely asleep. "Beautiful," he whispered.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
21c. 1950 ADMister, when I see my first lady angel, if God ever sees fit to show me one, it’ll be her wings not her face that’ll make my mouth fall open. I’ve already seen the prettiest face that ever could be.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
22c. 1950 ADThere 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.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
23c. 1950 ADTheir beauty was to the beauty of Miss Canal Zone as the glory of the Sun was to the glory of a lightning bug.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
24c. 1950 ADFor some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, the 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!Kurt Vonnegut Jr. / quote ↗
