Slaughterhouse-Five

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

the Tralfamadorians’ belief that the past, present, and future are merely the primitive notions of earthlings starts to sound like a comforting explanation for the intrusive nature of traumatic experience.

And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.

All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.

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.”

He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes.