Writing Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

I consider writing an act of good citizenship.

— Kurt Vonnegut

I'd rather have written "Cheers" than anything I've written.

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— 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

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

The biggest laughs are based on the biggest disappointments and the biggest fears.

— 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

Just because you can read, write and do a little math, doesn't mean that you're entitled to conquer the universe.

— Kurt Vonnegut

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— 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

Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they…

— Kurt Vonnegut

It pains me even now, even a million years later, to write about such human misbehaviour. A million years later, I feel…

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— 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

Mark Twain was so good with crowds that he became, in competition with singers and dancers and actors and acrobats, one of…

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

Novelists are people who have discovered that they can dampen their neuroses by writing make-believe. We will keep on doing that no…

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

— 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

So many people think that practicing an art is a good way to make a living. Practicing an art, no matter how…

— Kurt Vonnegut

The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person…

— Kurt Vonnegut

Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just…

— Kurt Vonnegut

Ink and paper are as cheap as sand or water, almost. No board of directors has to convene in order to decide…

— Kurt Vonnegut

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

“I became a so-called science fiction writer when someone decreed that I was a science fiction writer. I did not want to…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Young Castle called me "Scoop." "Good Morning, Scoop. What's new in the word game?" "I might ask the same of you," I…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters,…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life,…

— Kurt Vonnegut

Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.

— Kurt Vonnegut