Earthlings are the great explainers, explaining why this event is structured as it is, telling how other events may be achieved or avoided. Kurt Vonnegut More Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut More Quotes From Kurt Vonnegut Extenuating circumstance to be mentioned on Judgment Day: We never asked to be born in the first place. Kurt Vonnegut judgment born firsts 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 nature sleep philosophy The truth is, we know so little about life, we don't really know what the good news is and what the bad news is. Kurt Vonnegut truth-is news littles Humanists try to behave decently and honorably without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. The creator of the universe has been unknown to us so far. We serve as well as we can to the highest abstraction of which we have some understanding, which is our community. Kurt Vonnegut afterlife punishment expectations Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but the living room in your fortified compound. Kurt Vonnegut living-room compounds rooms The youngest child in any family is always a jokemaker, because a joke is the only way he can enter into an adult conversation. Kurt Vonnegut adults children way I say the same thing about the death of James Wait. "Oh, well -- he wasn't going to write the Beethoven's Ninth Symphony anyway. Kurt Vonnegut symphony waiting writing Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not. So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things. What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance. And all music is. Kurt Vonnegut veterans-day sacred-things want 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 being-alone lonely loneliness Question: What is the white stuff in bird poop? Kurt Vonnegut poop white bird A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete. All science has damaged is the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jonah and the Whale. Everything else holds up pretty well, particularly lessons about fairness and gentleness. People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends. Kurt Vonnegut whales greed people I wanted all things to seem to make some sense, So we could all be happy, yes, instead of tense. And I made up lies, so they all fit nice, and I made this sad world a paradise Kurt Vonnegut nice lying world He couldn't tell the difference between one politician and another. They were all formlessly enthusiastic chimpanzees to him. Kurt Vonnegut chimpanzees differences politician You are being suffocated by tradition... Why don't you say, 'I am going to build a life for myself, for my time, and make it a work of art'? Your life isn't a work of art ---it's a thirdhand Victorian whatnot shelf, complete with someone else's collection of seashells and hand-carved elephants. Kurt Vonnegut elephants hands art There's a Chaplain who never visited the front. Kurt Vonnegut chaplains foxholes atheism The First Amendment reads more like a dream than a law, and no other nation, so far as I know, has been crazy enough to include such a dream among its fundamental legal documents. I defend it because it has been so successful for two centuries in preserving our freedom and increasing our vitality, knowing that all arguments in support of it are certain to sound absurd. Kurt Vonnegut crazy successful dream Dear Sir, poor sir, brave sir." he read, "You are an experiment by the Creator of the Universe. You are the only creature in the entire Universe who has free will. You are the only one who has to figure out what to do next - and why. Everybody else is a robot, a machine. Some persons seem to like you, and others seem to hate you, and you must wonder why. They are simply liking machines and hating machines. You are pooped and demoralized, " read Dwayne. "Why wouldn't you be? Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable. Kurt Vonnegut next hate brave The two prime movers in the Universe are Time and Luck. Kurt Vonnegut prime luck two To whom it may concern: It is springtime. It is late afternoon. Kurt Vonnegut hipster afternoon literature He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next Kurt Vonnegut slaughterhouse-5 slaughterhouse-five next
