Writer Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer.

— Kurt Vonnegut

You develop a style from writing a lot.

— Kurt Vonnegut

Every writer has to write his speech.

— Kurt Vonnegut

Writers can treat their mental illnesses every day.

— Kurt Vonnegut

I never knew a writer's wife who wasn't beautiful.

— Kurt Vonnegut

“stationery of Magnum Opus,”

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

I hope to build a reputation as a science-fiction writer. That's the pitch. We'll see.

— Kurt Vonnegut

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

If you can't write clearly, you probably don't think nearly as well as you think you do.

— Kurt Vonnegut

Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer.

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Then again, I am a monopolar depressive descended from monopolar depressives. That's how come I write so good.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

That is how you get to be a writer, incidentally: you feel somehow marginal, somehow slightly off-balance all the time.

— Kurt Vonnegut

I keep losing and regaining my equilibrium, which is the basic plot of all popular fiction. And I myself am a work…

— Kurt Vonnegut

The reason we write fiction is because it's so much easier to exist spending part of each day in an imaginary world.

— Kurt Vonnegut

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at…

— Kurt Vonnegut

Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around in society like gut-shot bears.

— Kurt Vonnegut

Reading a novel, War and Peace for example, is no Catnap. Because a novel is so long, reading one is like being…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“A writer off-guard since the materials with which he works are so dangerous can expect agony as quick as a thunderclap.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

I have been a writer since 1949. I am self-taught. I have no theories about writing that might help others. When I…

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

Don't you think that's the main reason people find [writing] so difficult? If they can write complete sentences and can use a…

— Kurt Vonnegut

The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million…

— Kurt Vonnegut

Novelists have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale’s department store. Our power is patience. We…

— Kurt Vonnegut

This is what i find most encouraging about the writing trades: they allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise…

— Kurt Vonnegut

How important my books are or anybody's books are, I don't know. I don't think they are terribly important I think that…

— Kurt Vonnegut

As for myself: I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing sacred about myself or any human being, that we…

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“There are no telegraphs on Tralfamadore. But you're right: each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message-- describing a situation, a…

— Kurt Vonnegut

I am a monopolar depressive descended from monopolar depressives. That's how come I write so good.

— Kurt Vonnegut

The death of a library, any library, suggests that the community has lost its soul.

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut