10 Quotes from Kurt Vonnegut that Will Make You Think
From Slaughterhouse-Five to Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut really knows how to make readers think.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to regain my love of reading books. The last time I read a book was last year, and I remember really enjoying that book but for some reason, I cannot, for the love of God, finish another book after that.
I’ve always said that I’d be completely contented with a job where I could just read and get paid, and we all can, if we want it enough:
but I’m apparently in a phase where the things that used to bring me joy, don’t anymore.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has ever experienced this, and this doesn’t mean I’m not doing anything about it, that’s why I’m making an effort in sparking my love of reading again by rereading my favorite books and one of them happens to be Kurt’ Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.
In this effort of mine, I decided to write a mini-series consisting of my favorite quotes from my favorite authors, which is what I’m doing here so welcome to part 1!
So, who’s Kurt Vonnegut?
Kurt Vonnegut was an American author best known for the novels Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions.
Aside from all the great novels he wrote, Vonnegut also acted as a powerful spokesman for the preservation of our Constitutional freedoms, for nuclear arms control and for the protection of the earth’s fragile biosphere.
According to Vonnegut Library, Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11, 2007, after a fall on the steps of his New York brownstone. He was mourned the world over as one of the great American writers of the second half of the 20th century.
Here are my top 10 quotes from Kurt Vonnegut:
- “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 to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. 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.”
— A Man Without a Country
2. “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.”
— Cat’s Cradle
3. “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.”
4. “I get up at 7:30 and work four hours a day. Nine to twelve in the morning, five to six in the evening. Businessmen would achieve better results if they studied human metabolism. No one works well eight hours a day. No one ought to work more than four hours.”
5. “There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too.”
— Mother Night
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6. “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”
— Player Piano
7. “That is my principal objection to life, I think: It’s too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.”
— Deadeye Dick
8. “There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.”
— Breakfast of Champions
9. “That’s one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.”
— Slaughterhouse-Five
10. “But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes. People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.”
— Slaughterhouse-Five
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