Tom > Tom's Quotes

“Here is a lesson in creative writing.

First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.

And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding.

For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding.

We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding.

If you want to really 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 of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“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

“People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Welcome to the Monkey House

“Once I dated a woman I only liked 43%.
So I only listened to 43% of what she said.

Only told the truth 43% of the time.
And only kissed with 43% of my lips.

Some say you can't quantify desire,
attaching a number to passion isn't right,
that the human heart doesn't work like that.

But for me it does-I walk down the street

and numbers appear on the foreheads
of the people I look at. In bars, it's worse.

With each drink, the numbers go up
until every woman in the joint has a blurry

eighty something above her eyebrows,
and the next day I can only remember 17%
of what actually happened. That's the problem
with booze-it screws with your math.”
― jeffrey mcdaniel

“I don’t think I’m supposed to feel anything.
But if I did, I think today would feel… heavy.”
― Tom Dineen, Restart Required

“They are slowly taking my fine motor skills. The ability to write slowly degrading. My notes deteriorating to that of a school child then toddler, then undecipherable. Each loop of an ‘e’ starts looking like a failing heart monitor.”
― Tom Dineen, Restart Required