WIST Quotations

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- “Despite Tough Guys, Life Is Not the Only School for Real Novelists,” New York Times (1999-05-24)

Dave — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 16:41:56 +0000

The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one’s soul to grow.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
“Despite Tough Guys, Life Is Not the Only School for Real Novelists,” New York Times (1999-05-24)
(Source)

Part of the Times "Writers on Writing" series.

In Man Without a Country, ch. 3 "Here Is a Lesson in Creative Writing" (2005), Vonnegut expanded on this:

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 possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- “The Salon Interview: Kurt Vonnegut,” interview by Frank Houston, Salon (8 Oct 1999)

Dave — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:24:04 +0000

What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. The child watching TV loves these people, you know — they’re in color, and they’re talking to the child. Why wouldn’t a child relate to these people? And you know, if you can’t sleep at 3 o’clock in the morning, you can turn on a switch, and there are your friends and relatives, and they obviously like you. And they’re charming. Who wouldn’t want Peter Jennings for a relative? This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
“The Salon Interview: Kurt Vonnegut,” interview by Frank Houston, Salon (8 Oct 1999)
(Source)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- (Attributed)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, and don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
(Attributed)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- (Attributed)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
(Attributed)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- A Man Without A Country, ch. 9 (2005)

Dave — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 15:40:37 +0000

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. “Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
A Man Without A Country, ch. 9 (2005)
(Source)

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5).

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Breakfast of Champions, ch. 17 (1973)

Dave — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 16:04:27 +0000

Fascism was a fairly popular political philosophy which made sacred whatever nation and race the philosopher happened to belong to.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Breakfast of Champions, ch. 17 (1973)
(Source)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Cat’s Cradle, ch. 76 [Castle] (1963)

Dave — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 16:15:36 +0000

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, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Cat’s Cradle, ch. 76 [Castle] (1963)
(Source)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Cat’s Cradle, ch. 88 [Bokonon] (1963)

Dave — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 21:59:59 +0000

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Cat’s Cradle, ch. 88 [Bokonon] (1963)
(Source)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Hocus Pocus (1990)

Dave — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 14:45:53 +0000

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Hocus Pocus (1990)
(Source)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Hocus Pocus, ch. 24 (1990)

Dave — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 22:09:53 +0000

Speaking of atheism, I remember one time when Jack Patton and I went to a sermon in Vietnam delivered by the highest-ranking Chaplain in the Army. He was a General.
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.”

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Hocus Pocus, ch. 24 (1990)
(Source)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Man Without a Country, ch. 3 “Here Is a Lesson in Creative Writing” (2005)

Dave — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 16:21:22 +0000

If you want to really hurt your 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 of making a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Man Without a Country, ch. 3 “Here Is a Lesson in Creative Writing” (2005)
(Source)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Mother Night, Introduction (1961)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Mother Night, Introduction (1961)
(Source)

See Hawthorne.

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Slaughterhouse-Five, ch. 2 (1969)

Dave — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:26:30 +0000

The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Slaughterhouse-Five, ch. 2 (1969)
(Source)

The beginning of Billy's second letter.

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Essay (2004-08-06), “I Love You, Madame Librarian,” In These Times Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 20 (2004-08-30)

Dave — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 08:38:35 +0000

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.
So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Essay (2004-08-06), “I Love You, Madame Librarian,” In These Times Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 20 (2004-08-30)
(Source)

Collected in A Man without a Country, ch. 9 "Do Unto Others" (2005).

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Lecture

Dave — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 03:39:17 +0000

But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Lecture
(Source)

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Letter (1992-10-16) to Robert Maslansky

Dave — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 22:09:58 +0000

I told her that what made being alive almost worthwhile for me was all the saints I met almost anywhere, people who were behaving decently in an indecent society.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Letter (1992-10-16) to Robert Maslansky
(Source)

Phrases used in a number of places by Vonnegut, often as his reply when a woman wrote him to ask if it were right to bring a child into a world as bad as this one; he then encouraged his readers or listeners to become a saint for that child. He also used the phrase to describe the underlying theme of his writing.

Other variants:

I replied that what made being alive almost worthwhile for me was the saints I met, people behaving unselfishly and capably. They turned up in the most unexpected places.
[Timequake, ch. 62 (1997)]

I replied that what made living almost worthwhile for me were the saints I met. They could be anywhere. They were people who behaved decently in an indecent society.
[Kevin Alexander Bacon, ed., At Millennium's End: New Essays on the Work of Kurt Vonnegut, Foreword (1998-11-11) (2001)]

What makes life worth living are the saints I meet -- they can be long-time friends or someone I meet on a street. They find a way to behave decently in an indecent society.
["Vonnegut Unbound," Interview by Christopher R. Blazejewski, The Harvard Crimson (2000-05-12)]

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.
[Lecture (2003-09-22), University of Wisconsin, Madison; reprinted in "Knowing What's Nice," In These Times (2003-11-06)]

What makes life worth living are the saints. You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.
[Frequently quoted version]

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Letter to his daughter, Nanny (1975)

Dave — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:11:48 +0000

Most letters from a parent contain a parent’s own lost dreams disguised as good advice.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Letter to his daughter, Nanny (1975)