Cat's Cradle

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Nice, nice, very nice; Nice, nice, very nice; Nice, nice, very nice— So many different people In the same device.

Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.

“Angela was twenty-two then. She had been the real head of the family since she was sixteen, since Mother died, since I was born. She used to talk about how she had three children—me, Frank, and Father. She wasn’t exaggerating, either. I can remember cold mornings when Frank, Father, and I would be all in a line in the front hall, and Angela would be bundling us up, treating us exactly the same. Only I was going to kindergarten; Frank was going to junior high; and Father was going to work on the atom bomb. I remember one morning like that when the oil burner had quit, the pipes were frozen, and the car wouldn’t start. We all sat there in the car while Angela kept pushing the starter until the battery was dead. And then Father spoke up. You know what he said? He said, ‘I wonder about turtles.’ ‘What do you wonder about turtles?’ Angela asked him. ‘When they pull in their heads,’ he said, ‘do their spines buckle or contract?’