The collection / 25 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

When I used to come home from school Mother used to ask me what happened that day, and I’d tell her,” said Miss Pefko. “Now I come home from work and she asks me the same question, and all I can say is—” Miss Pefko shook her head and let her crimson lips flap slackly— “I dunno, I dunno, I dunno.”“If there’s something you don’t understand,” urged Dr. Breed, “ask Dr. Horvath to explain it. He’s very good at explaining.” He turned to me. “Dr. Hoenikker used to say that any scientist who couldn’t explain to an eight-year-old what he was doing was a charlatan.”“Then I’m dumber than an eight-year-old,” Miss Pefko mourned. “I don’t even know what a charlatan is.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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02Undated

The secret to success in any human endeavor is total concentration.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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03Undated

I'd rather have written "Cheers" than anything I've written.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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04Undated

Educating a beautiful woman is like pouring honey into a fine Swiss watch: everything stops.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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05Undated

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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06Undated

Science sent the Hubble telescope out into space, so it could capture light and the absence thereof, from the very beginning of time. And the telescope really did that. So now we know that there was once absolutely nothing, such a perfect nothing that there wasn't even nothing or once.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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07Undated

Science is magic that works.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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08Undated

I am honorary President of the American Humanist Society, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that utterly functionless capacity. We Humanists behave as well as we can, without any rewards or punishments in an Afterlife.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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09Undated

As a Humanist, I love science. I hate superstition, which could never have given us A-bombs.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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10Undated

I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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11Undated

I was a chemistry major, but I'm always winding up as a teacher in English departments, so I've brought scientific thinking to literature. There's been very little gratitude for this.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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12Undated

This country is being managed to death, being public related to death.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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13Undated

The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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14Undated

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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15Undated

I get up at 7:30 and work four hours a day. Nine to twelve in the morning, five to six in the evening. Businessmen would achieve better results if they studied human metabolism. No one works well eight hours a day. No one ought to work more than four hours.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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16Undated

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn't always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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17Undated

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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18Undated

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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19Undated

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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20Undated

I'm screamingly funny, you know, I really am in the books. And that helps because I'm funnier than a lot of people, I think, and that's appreciated by young people.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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21Undated

When I'm being funny, I try not to offend. I don't think much of what I've done has been in really ghastly taste. I don't think I have embarrassed many people or distressed them.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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22Undated

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.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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23Undated

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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24Undated

Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

Kurt Vonnegut / quote

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