Sam > Sam's Quotes

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“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.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“If you want to really hurt you 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 possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“All right - I'll tell you what you did for me: you went for happy, silly, beautiful walks with me.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“What's the point of being alive," she said, "if you're not going to communicate?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“The Great Depression was going on, so that the station and the streets teemed with homeless people, just as they do today. The newspapers were full of stories of worker layoffs and farm foreclosures and bank failures, just as they are today. All that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television, we can hide a Great Depression. We may even be hiding a Third World War.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“Fathers are always so proud the first time they see their sons in uniform," she said.

"I know Big John Karpinski was," I said. He is my neighbor to the north, of course. Big John's son Little John did badly in high school, and the police caught him selling dope. So he joined the Army while the Vietnam War was going on. And the first time he came home in uniform, I never saw Big John so happy, because it looked to him as though Little John was all straightened out and would amount to something.

But then Little John came home in a body bag.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“A lot of people were opposed to it. A lot of people were for it. I myself think about it as little as possible.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“Most kids can't afford to go to Harvard to be misinformed.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“Rabo Karabekian: I'm in the middle of a sentence.
Circe Berman: Who isn't?.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“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

“Never have I risked my life, or even my comfort, in the service of mankind. Shame on me.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird

“I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird

“You can't help it but you were born without a heart. At least you tried to believe what the people with hearts believed — so you were a good man just the same.”
― kurt vonnegut

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.”
― Henry Stanley Haskins, Meditations in Wall Street