The Sirens of Titan

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

EVERY ONE 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. They could not name even one of the fifty-three portals to the soul. Gimcrack religions were big business. Mankind, ignorant of the truths that lie within every human being, looked outward—pushed ever outward.

found what had already been found in abundance on Earth—a nightmare of meaninglessness without end.

Outwardness lost, at last, its imagined attractions. Only inwardness remained to be explored. Only the human soul remained terra incognita. This was the beginning of goodness and wisdom.

What were people like in olden times, with their souls as yet unexplored?

but the Universe is an awfully big place. There is room enough for an awful lot of people to be right about things and still not agree.

"When I ran my space ship into the chrono-synclastic infundibulum, it came to me in a flash that everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been."

It’s the great becoming that makes the light and the heat and the motion, and bangs you from hither to yon.

What Beatrice had done with her face, actually, was what any plain girl could do. She had overlaid it with dignity, suffering, intelligence, and a piquant dash of bitchiness.

The crowd, having been promised nothing, felt cheated, having received nothing.

He had been somewhat less successful than Aristotle in perceiving patterns in what he knew.

the big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart.

They do not reach maturity, then deteriorate and die. They reach maturity and stay in full bloom, so to speak, for as long as Mercury cares to sing. There is no way in which one creature can harm another, and no motive for one’s harming another. Hunger, envy, ambition, fear, indignation, religion, and sexual lust are irrelevant and unknown.

Because of their love for music and their willingness to deploy themselves in the service of beauty, the creatures are given a lovely name by Earthlings. They are called harmoniums.

Now they were regaining consciousness—were being treated to a cruel and lovely illusion.

The things he wept for were all abstractions,

When Boaz gave them their first taste of music, which happened to be Le Sacre du Printemps, some of the creatures actually died in ecstasy.

I WAS A VICTIM OF A SERIES OF ACCIDENTS, AS ARE WE ALL.

The human race is a scummy thing, and so is Earth, and so are you."

The name of his home planet was Tralfamadore, which old Salo once translated for Rumfoord as meaning both all of us and the number 541.

hypnotic anarchy,

The ruins of the reply still stand, and are known as Stonehenge. The meaning of Stonehenge in Tralfamadorian, when viewed from above, is: "Replacement part being rushed with all possible speed."

the Universal Will to Become echo through the vaulted architecture of the Universe with about three times the speed of light.

There was nothing offensive in this love. That is to say, it wasn’t homosexual. It couldn’t be, since Salo had no sex.

"One gets tired, you know, being caught up in the monotonous clockwork of the Solar System."

Everything that ever was always will be, and everything that ever will be always was."

"Comforting as that chrono-synclastic infundibulated thought is," he said, "I should still like to know just what the main point of this Solar System episode has been."

"We have taken part for the last time," said Constant loudly, "in experiments and fights and festivals we don’t like or understand!"

"I am not dying," said Rumfoord. "I am merely taking my leave of the Solar System. And I am not even doing that. In the grand, in the timeless, in the chrono-synclastic infundibulated way of looking at things, I shall always be here. I shall always be wherever I’ve been.

"Whatever we’ve said, friends, we’re saying still— such as it was, such as it is, such as it will be,"

"The machine is no longer a machine," said Salo. "The machine’s contacts are corroded, his bearings fouled, his circuits shorted, and his gears stripped. His mind buzzes and pops like the mind of an Earthling— fizzes and overheats with thoughts of love, honor, dignity, rights, accomplishment, integrity, independence—"

It was in the nature of truly effective good-luck pieces that human beings never really owned them.

Sooner or later, Chrono believed, the magical forces of the Universe would put everything back together again. They always did.

It was all so sad. But it was all so beautiful, too.

He liked to show off his skills as a provider. It was a compulsion.

"The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody," she said, "would be to not be used for anything by anybody."

"It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."