Timequake

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Twain didn’t live to see World War One, but still he felt that way.

“being alive is a crock of shit.”

He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to notice it.

“Nothing wrecks any kind of love more effectively than the discovery that your previously acceptable behavior has become ridiculous.”

Christmas Eves,

Christmases Eve?

Talk about what we say we want for everyone in America: a level playing field! And Dillinger robbed only the rich and strong, banks with armed guards, and in person.

One does prefer to keep ones perfidy better hidden than all that if one can help it.

“If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have nerve enough to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.”

Though the homosexual route is a good deal more fun.

“If your brains were dynamite, there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off.”

“If there is a God, He sure hates people. That’s all I can say.”

The inspiration for what Mrs. Wilkerson did to young Zoltan Pepper was of course The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Complete shit book btw, fuck Hawthorne and the prude he rode in on.

apostate. The night shift of armed guards would be

“We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” One might protest, “My dear Dr. Vonnegut, we can’t all be pediatricians.”

Several of the war criminals wear an Iron Cross, awarded only to Germans who have demonstrated battlefield fearlessness so excessive as to be classifiable as psychopathic.

He puts a pistol to his head. Everybody says, “Nein, nein, nein.” He convinces everyone that shooting himself is the dignified thing to do. What should his last words be? He says, “How about ‘I regret nothing’?” Goebbels replies that such a statement would be appropriate, but that the Parisian cabaret performer Edith Piaf has made a worldwide reputation by singing those same words in French for decades. “Her sobriquet,” says Goebbels, “is ‘Little Sparrow.’ You don’t want to be remembered as a little sparrow, or I miss my guess.” Hitler still hasn’t lost his sense of humor. He says, “How about ‘BINGO’?” But he is tired. He puts the pistol to his head again. He says, “I never asked to be born in the first place.” The pistol goes “BANG!”

I still quote Eugene Debs (1855-1926), late of Terre Haute, Indiana, five times the Socialist Party’s candidate for President, in every speech: “While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” In recent years, I’ve found it prudent to say before quoting Debs that he is to be taken seriously. Otherwise many in the audience will start to laugh. They are being nice, not mean, knowing I like to be funny. But it is also a sign of these times that such a moving echo of the Sermon on the Mount can be perceived as outdated, wholly discredited horsecrap. Which it is not.

Another friend and client of his said he couldn’t possibly have committed suicide, it was so out of character. I replied, “Even with military training, there is no way a man can accidentally blow his head off with a shotgun.”

As I have written elsewhere, this man is a saint. I define a saint as a person who behaves decently in an indecent society.

Question: What is the white stuff in bird poop? Answer: That is bird poop, too.

What we have created instead, as customers and employees and investors, is mountains of paper wealth so enormous that a handful of people in charge of them can take millions and billions for themselves without hurting anyone. Apparently. Many members of my generation are disappointed.