That speciﬁc remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a... by Kurt Vonnegut

That speciﬁc remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues.

Kurt Vonnegut

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He was a graduate of West Point, which is military academy that turns young men into homicidal maniacs for use in war.

military men war

Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

modern-life character water

...Skyscraper National Park by Kurt Vonnegut

...Skyscraper National Park

national-parks parks new-york

It is time for me to be dead for a little while - and then live a... by Kurt Vonnegut

It is time for me to be dead for a little while - and then live again.

When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away - even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

glasses writing character

Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.

done stories writing

Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on.

artist book moving

It's perfectly ordinary to be a socialist. It's perfectly normal... by Kurt Vonnegut

It's perfectly ordinary to be a socialist. It's perfectly normal to be in favor of fire departments.

perfectly-normal fire ordinary

There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.

brother book needs

The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front.

atheism atheist religion

Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency. by Kurt Vonnegut

Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency.

slapstick common-decency littles

If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.

hurt writing art

Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly better than... by Kurt Vonnegut

Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly better than no drugs at all.

drug government war

The prostitutes worked for a pimp now. He was splendid and cruel. He was a god to them. He took their free will away from them, which was perfectly all right. They didn't want it anyway. It was as though they had surrendered themselves to Jesus, for instance, so they could live unselfishly and trustingly-except that they had surrendered to a pimp instead.

pimp stupidity jesus

I am an atheist (or at best a Unitarian who winds up in church qu... by Kurt Vonnegut

I am an atheist (or at best a Unitarian who winds up in church quite a lot).

atheist wind religion

There is no good reason good can't triumph over evil, if only angels will get organized along the lines of the mafia.

mafia angel evil

But I replied that what made being alive almost worthwhile for me, besides music, was all the saints I met, who could be anywhere. By saints I meant people who behaved decently in a strikingly indecent society.

saint alive people

Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side.

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.

machines hate wonder

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. by Kurt Vonnegut

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

roots writing character