"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Mother Night)

"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Dance Like No One is Watching...
Love Like You Have Never Been Hurt Before...
Go to Work Like You Don't Need The Money."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"If you really want to 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 to make life more bearable."
— Kurt Vonnegut (A Man Without a Country)

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

"All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States -- and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!"
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
— Ernest Hemingway

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
— Ernest Hemingway

"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was."
— Ernest Hemingway

"The first draft of anything is shit."
— Ernest Hemingway

"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
— Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms)

"Never confuse movement with action."
— Ernest Hemingway

"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."
— Ernest Hemingway

"Write drunk; edit sober."
— Ernest Hemingway

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."
— Ernest Hemingway

"The world breaks us all. Afterward, some are stronger at the broken places."
— Ernest Hemingway

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime."
— Ernest Hemingway

"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
— Ernest Hemingway

"About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after."
— Ernest Hemingway (Death in the Afternoon)

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."
— Ernest Hemingway

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason."
— Ernest Hemingway

"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
— Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms)

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. "
— Raymond Chandler

"From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away. "
— Raymond Chandler

"He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake."
— Raymond Chandler

"There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself."
— Raymond Chandler (Long Goodbye)

"The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back."
— Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye)

"Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon."
— Raymond Chandler

"As honest as you can expect a man to be in a world where its going out of style."
— Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep)

"The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two."
— Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man)

"...What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with Life."
— Dashiell Hammett