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Books Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

106 Books quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

All Books quotes Kurt Vonnegut’s page

Kurt Vonnegut treats literature as a playful satire, pointing out that many ideas feel as important as a newsletter about molecules. He jokes that life’s big story arcs are exaggerated, and his own books become mosaics of jokes instead of solemn epics. He also stresses clear writing so readers can see his meaning.

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Only in books do we learn what’s really going on.

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Never index your own book.

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You've got to be a good date for the reader.

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History! Read it and weep!

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Nothing in this book is true.

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“people who are wary of what they might find in a book if they opened 1 are right to be”

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“He didn't read them. He praised them for what he imagined to be in them”

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“What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time”

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“Any brain worth a nickel knows books are good for us.”

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“It was literature in its finest sense, since it made Unk courageous, watchful, and secretly free.”

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People who are wary of what they might find in a book if they opened one are right to be.

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

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Literature is the only art in which the audience performs the score.

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“If you would write a book about that and give the answer to that question, that 'why?' - you would have a…

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Literature is by definition opinionated. It is bound to provoke the arguments in many quarters, not excluding the hometown or even the…

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1. Find a subject you care about. 2. Do not ramble, though. 3. Keep it simple. 4. Have the guts to cut.…

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“By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This…

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“Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that…

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“They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so…

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“Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.”

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There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor…

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“What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at once.There is no beginning, no middle,…

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Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding…

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“An American near Billy wailed that he had excreted everything but his brains. Moments later he said, “There they go, there they…

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“[Books] were devices as crassly practical for storing or transmitting language, as the latest Silicon Valley miracles. But by accident, not by…

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“The master of ceremonies asked people to say what they thought the function of the novel might be in modern society, and…

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I have become an enthusiast for the printed word again. I have to be that, I now understand, because I want to…

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“The imagination circuit is taught to respond to the most minimal of cues. A book is an arrangement of 26 phonetic symbols,…

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“Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its…

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“Well, I've worried some about, you know, why write books ... why are we teaching people to write books when presidents and…

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“As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my…

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“So this book is a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I throw over my shoulders as I travel in time back…

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“And the peanut butter-eaters on Earth were preparing to conquer the shazzbutter-eaters on the planet in the book by Kilgore Trout. By…

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“I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby,” I said. “The irony is so…

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“He spent two years in the extermination camp at Auschwitz. According to his own reluctant account, he came this close to going…

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“And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political…

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“It was all here for me, just as it has all been here for you, the best and the worst of Western…

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I go on many thrilling adventures and wondrous, profound escapades through books.

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“There's more to life than what you read in books. You'll find that out.”

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“No children. No books. Few friends. She seemed to know what she was doing.”

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More by Kurt Vonnegut

“You must bloom as a writer and I must bloom as a painter. Everything else about us is uninteresting.”

“People aren't supposed to look back.”

“Have a good nap, did you?” said the porter. “Yes,” said Billy. “Man,” said the porter, “you sure had a hard-on.”

“I told him that if we doubted that we are demons in Hell, he should read The Mysterious Stranger, which Mark Twain wrote in…

“Thomas Jefferson High School [..] His high school was named after a slave owner who was also one of the world’s greatest theoreticians on…

“I had a certain amount of skill as a dramatist, and Dr. Goebbels wanted me to use it”

I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud.

“The town was Newport, Rhode Island, U.S.A., Earth, Solar System, Milky Way.”

“Her face was one of a kind, a surprising variation that made observers think, Yes--that would be another very nice way for people to…

“You finally fell in love, I see,” said Salo. “Only an Earthling year ago,” said Constant. “It took us that long to realize that…

“Like all Earthlings at the point of death, Mary Young sent faint reminders of herself to those who had known her. She released a…

“And contrast Mary Kathleen, if you will, with my wife Ruth, the Ophelia of the death camps, who believed that even the most intelligent…

Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end, And our God will take things back that He to us did lend. And if,…

“They were going back to the slaughterhouse for souvenirs of the war.”

“There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty…