The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Trafalmadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin — who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements. – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five
Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being. – Kurt Vonnegut, “Cold Turkey”, In These Times, May 12, 2004.
My uncle Alex Vonnegut[…] taught me something very important. He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to notice it.
He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories[….]
Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: “If this isn’t nice, what is?” – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake
I say in lectures in 1996 that fifty percent or more of American marriages go bust because most of us no longer have extended families. When you marry somebody now, all you get is one person.
I say that when couples fight, it isn’t about money or sex or power. What they’re really saying is, “You’re not enough people!”
Sigmund Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake
My sister Allie in real life, which for her lasted only forty-one years, God rest her soul, thought falling down was one of the funniest things people could do. I don’t mean people who fell on account of strokes or heart attacks or snapped hamstrings or whatever. I am talking about people ten years old or older, of any race and either sex, and in reasonably good physical condition, who, on a day like any other day, all of a sudden fell down. – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake
I have one heck of a good time. Listen: we are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different! – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake
God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut.