Kurt Vonnegut Wisdom

[Bonobo]

"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'

"Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."

"She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing."

"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."

"Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."

"What 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."

"If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind."

"The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected."

"The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead."

"My wife has been killed by a machine which should never have come into the hands of any human being. It is called a firearm. It makes the blackest of all human wishes come true at once, at a distance: that something die. There is evil for you. We cannot get rid of mankind's fleetingly evil wishes. We can get rid of the machines that make them come true. I give you a holy word: DISARM."

"All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental."

"There 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."

"Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on."

[2naSalit]

1. Thanks

Bookmarking for future reference.

[siligut]

2. Kurt Vonnegut had a bit of influence in my early adulthood development

And so it goes

[Bonobo]

3. Hi ho! nt

[siligut]

5. Slapstick!

Ought to be on every teen's required reading list.

[Bonobo]

6. Seriously overlooked! nt

[siligut]

7. "Hi ho" and "So it goes" are two refrains I can remember, but there is another

I may try to do a search, now I need to know.

[Bonobo]

8. I think it might be "and so on" nt

[siligut]

10. Breakfast of Champions, so yes, that might just be it.

Thank you

[progressoid]

12. "take a flying fuck at a rolling donut"

That was one of my faves.

[siligut]

13. Yes, that is quite expressive. Which novel is it from?

And did he have a zoo filled with people? I may be confused, it was so long ago.

[Bonobo]

14. That's from Slapstick.

The zoo is from Slaughterhouse Five.

[siligut]

17. Read both, Slaughterhouse Five over and over

Slapstick, I read on a plane flight. Still can't place where that zoo was in the book, but it makes sense.

[Bonobo]

18. Tralfamadore

The aliens kidnap Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of the novel, and place him in a zoo on Tralfamadore with Montana Wildhack, a Hollywood starlet.

[siligut]

19. I remembered a buxom blond and now even more with your help

Though quite different, Piers Anthony and Kurt Vonnegut are similar in that one respect, sexy females under unusual circumstances.

[G_j]

4. no better advice,

"What 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."

[bvar22]

9. ~

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[Bonobo]

11. +1

Is that an asshole or is a character about to die?

[Egalitarian Thug]

15. More of Vonnegut's wisdom;

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut tells his friend, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.

Heller said, “Yes, but I have something he will never have: Enough.”

[Bonobo]

16. Brilliant answer. nt

[Lunacee_2013]

20. Vonnegut is my favorite author. Nt.

[azul]

21. Here is one that is difficult

to see sometimes:

"Human beings are about 1,000 times dumber and meaner than they think they are."

Thanks Bonobo

[marions ghost]

22. These three stand out to me RE America:

"The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected."

"My wife has been killed by a machine which should never have come into the hands of any human being. It is called a firearm. It makes the blackest of all human wishes come true at once, at a distance: that something die. There is evil for you. We cannot get rid of mankind's fleetingly evil wishes. We can get rid of the machines that make them come true. I give you a holy word: DISARM."

"Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on."

[CBGLuthier]

23. Po-tee-weet?