Kurt Vonnegut quotes

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. (Kurt Vonnegut)
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
Kurt Vonnegut
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
Kurt Vonnegut
History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.
Kurt Vonnegut
We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.
Kurt Vonnegut
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.
Kurt Vonnegut
One of the few good things about modern times If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
Kurt Vonnegut
Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.
Kurt Vonnegut
Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.
Kurt Vonnegut
There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.
Kurt Vonnegut
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured. (Kurt Vonnegut)
I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.
Kurt Vonnegut
Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?
Kurt Vonnegut
The big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart.
Kurt Vonnegut
About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.
Kurt Vonnegut
Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.
Kurt Vonnegut
People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.
Kurt Vonnegut
The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.
Kurt Vonnegut
How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
Kurt Vonnegut
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
Kurt Vonnegut
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. (Kurt Vonnegut)
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.
Kurt Vonnegut
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
Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!
Kurt Vonnegut
The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.
Kurt Vonnegut