There is never a shortage anywhere of lawyers eager to attack the First Amendment, as though it were nothing more than a clause in a lease from a crooked slumlord. Kurt Vonnegut More Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut More Quotes From Kurt Vonnegut I wasn't aware of Ku Klux Klan as I was aware of the widespread assumption that African-Americans were dumber than white people. I think my father believed that. I think everybody white did. Kurt Vonnegut ku-klux-klan father thinking I've written about Powers Hapgood. He was a Harvard graduate, son of a wealthy family who owned a cannery out there. After leaving Harvard, he went to work in coal mines and then was a CIO executive when I met him there, in Indianapolis. Kurt Vonnegut cio leaving son My definition of a man's man is a man who knows gun safety, and we all did. Kurt Vonnegut safety gun men I learned how to make jokes because I wanted to give people as much fun as they did, and I guess I did, too. Kurt Vonnegut fun giving people Powers Hapgood had just come from court because there was some kind of dust-up on a picket line. The judge was so curious about him - coming from a rich family - why he would choose to live as he had. I guess you know what his answer was ..."The Sermon on the Mount, sir." That's important. Kurt Vonnegut dust important judging What Franklin Roosevelt did, which really offended them, was he strengthened the labor unions - made it possible for them to strike. The oligarchs were furious because the working class was not supposed to have any power at all. Kurt Vonnegut franklin unions class Social class means a hell of a lot and upper class people - no matter how well [Franklin ] Roosevelt did - it was stylish to hate him. Kurt Vonnegut hate class mean It was headquartered in Michigan City, a long way off. I never saw Ku Klux Klan march. Kurt Vonnegut ku-klux-klan cities long This had been going on at Shortridge since 1906. My parents had also worked on the Shortridge Daily Echo. The way it came into being was that when they built Shortridge High School, they had a vocational department and they had a print shop. Kurt Vonnegut echoes parent school Of course, socialism is just evil now. It's completely discredited supposedly by the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I can't help noticing that my grandchildren are heavily in hock to Communist China now which is evidently a whole lot better at business than we are. Kurt Vonnegut unions grandchildren evil Every writer has to write his speech. Kurt Vonnegut speech writing Literature is by definition opinionated. It is bound to provoke the arguments in many quarters, not excluding the hometown or even the family of the author. Kurt Vonnegut argument definitions literature It seems to me divorce is so common now. It ought to be more institutionalized. It's like a head-on collision every time. It's supposed to be a surprise but it's commonplace. Kurt Vonnegut divorce surprise common In those days great teachers at Shortridge [High School] were celebrities. I would look up to them. Kurt Vonnegut teacher looks school One thing I learned, with permission of the school committee of Indianapolis, was that when a tyrant or a government gets in trouble it wonders what to do. Declare war! Then nothing else matters. It's like chess; when in doubt, castle. Kurt Vonnegut government war school What everybody is well advised to do is to not write about your own life, this is if you want to write fast. You will be writing about your own life anyway but you won't know it. Kurt Vonnegut wells want writing We were into the Speedway. We'd take a train out to the Speedway where farmers had flatbed trucks with bleachers on them. They'd park in the infield and we'd sit on those. Our heroes weren't the drivers, they were the pit crews. That's because we were local, and we knew what was going on. Kurt Vonnegut pits parks hero The polls demonstrate that 50 percent of Americans who get their news from TV think Saddam Hussein was behind the Twin Towers attack. Man, have they got ways for getting half-truths out right away now, thanks to TV! I think TV is a calamity in a democracy. Kurt Vonnegut democracy men thinking We were all gun nuts and they were called varmints, crows were, because they ate grain and so did we. Kurt Vonnegut crow gun nuts Our classes were relatively small. Those small classes can feel like family. After a class in French or chemistry or whatever, we'd be talking in the halls about what we just learned. Kurt Vonnegut like-family class talking
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