When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
There is no shortage of wonderful writers. What we lack is a dependable mass of readers. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
He did not think of himself as a writer for the simple reason that the world had never allowed him to think… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“You must bloom as a writer and I must bloom as a painter. Everything else about us is uninteresting.” — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
There were creative-writin g teachers long before there were creative-writin g courses, and they were called and continue to be called editors. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
I was clasified as a 'Science Fiction' writer simply because I wrote about Schenectady. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
Honest to God, Bill, the way things are going, all I can think of is that I'm a character in a book… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
I wonder now what Ernest Hemingways dictionary looked like, since he got along so well with dinky words that anybody can spell… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“He was a district attorney in Pennsylvania. I was a writer on Cape Cod. We had been privates in the war, infantry… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or… — kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical.… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“Jesus--if Kilgore Trout could only write!" Rosewater exclaimed. He had a point: Kilgore Trout's unpopularity was deserved. His prose was frightful. Only… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
I'm simply interested in what is going to happen next. I don't think I can control my life or my writing. Every… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“I felt after I finished Slaughterhouse-Five that I didn’t have to write at all anymore if I didn’t want to. It was… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to become a professional writer. I… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“I'm on the New York State Council for the Arts now, and every so often some other member talks about sending notices… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“This is the secret of good storytelling: to lie, but to keep the arithmetic sound. A storyteller, like any other sort of… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow -… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer." "What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman? — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“All I require of a translator is that he or she be a more gifted writer than I am, and in at… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
We have such a young culture that there is an opportunity to contribute wonderful new myths to it, which will be accepted. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
People should practice an art in order to make their souls grow and not to make money or become famous. Paint a… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“Any writer who presents an American home today where the television is not the head of the family is living in a… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
Thank God for novelists. Thank God there are people willing to write everything down. Otherwise, so much would be forgotten. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
If you appear in the 'Atlantic' or 'Harper's' or the 'New Yorker,' by God, you must be a writer, because everybody says… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
This is what I find encouraging about the writing trades: ... They allow lunatics to seem saner than sane. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
You can't teach people to write well. Writing well is something God lets you do or declines to let you do. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
It's only recently that I've come to understand that writers are not marginal to our society, that they, in fact, do all… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them in order that the… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away - even… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
What everybody is well advised to do is to not write about your own life, this is if you want to write… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
I am beguiled by your physical beauty, and I am moved by how head-over-heels in love with books you are. And nowhere… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
Did you ever admire an empty-headed writer for his or her mastery of the language? No. So your own winning style must… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
That's the secret of how to enjoy writing and how to make yourself meet high standards," said Mrs. Berman. "You don't write… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
“You must bloom as a writer and I must bloom as a painter. Everything else about us is uninteresting.” — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“Have a good nap, did you?” said the porter. “Yes,” said Billy. “Man,” said the porter, “you sure had a hard-on.” — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“I told him that if we doubted that we are demons in Hell, he should read The Mysterious Stranger, which Mark Twain wrote in… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“Thomas Jefferson High School [..] His high school was named after a slave owner who was also one of the world’s greatest theoreticians on… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“I had a certain amount of skill as a dramatist, and Dr. Goebbels wanted me to use it” — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“The town was Newport, Rhode Island, U.S.A., Earth, Solar System, Milky Way.” — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“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… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“You finally fell in love, I see,” said Salo. “Only an Earthling year ago,” said Constant. “It took us that long to realize that… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“Like all Earthlings at the point of death, Mary Young sent faint reminders of herself to those who had known her. She released a… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“And contrast Mary Kathleen, if you will, with my wife Ruth, the Ophelia of the death camps, who believed that even the most intelligent… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end, And our God will take things back that He to us did lend. And if,… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
“There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share
