Artist Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow.

— Kurt Vonnegut

No art is possible without a dance with death.

— Kurt Vonnegut

“The function of art is to make people like life more than they do.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

I'm a painter in my dreams, you know.

— Kurt Vonnegut

You don't do art for any other reason than to help your soul grow.

— Kurt Vonnegut

The arts are not a way to make a living,

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Participation in an art, although unrewarded by wealth or fame...is a way to make one's soul grow.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

The artist makes his living by pretending, by putting it in a meaningful hole though no such holes exist.

— Kurt Vonnegut

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.

— Kurt Vonnegut

If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do…

— Kurt Vonnegut

No one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving…

— Kurt Vonnegut

The canary bird in the coal mine theory of the arts: artists should be treasured as alarm systems.

— Kurt Vonnegut

That’s the secret of artistic unity. Anybody can achieve it, if he or she will make something with only one person in…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“The arts..are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a…

— Kurt Vonnegut

There is a strong feeling in the Middle West that the artist is not pulling his own weight no matter how hard…

— Kurt Vonnegut

I've been drawing all my life, just as a hobby, without really having shows or anything. It's just an agreeable thing to…

— Kurt Vonnegut

Artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are supersensitive. They keel over like canaries in coal mines filled…

— Kurt Vonnegut

You are being suffocated by tradition... Why don't you say, 'I am going to build a life for myself, for my time,…

— Kurt Vonnegut

The world is too serious. To get mad at a work of art-because maybe somebody, somewhere is blowing his stack over what…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“She had never seen me draw–because not drawing and forgetting everything I knew about art, I thought, was the magic key to…

— Kurt Vonnegut

Much of the blame is the malarkey that artists have created to glorify war, which as we all know, is nonsense, and…

— Kurt Vonnegut

It often is a terrible insult to some families if one of the kids turns out to be an artist and that's…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“During that war we had a word for extreme man-made disorder which was fubar, an acronym for 'fucked up beyond all recognition.'…

— Kurt Vonnegut

If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do…

— Kurt Vonnegut

The painting was framed in a misty view of sky, sea, and valley. Newt's painting was small, black, and warty. It consisted…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Future civilizations - better civilizations than this one - are going to judge all men by the extent to which they've been…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Artists,‚Äù he said, ‚Äúare people who say, 'I can't fix my country or my state or my city, or even my marriage.…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“There's no question about it. The arts are an extremely high-risk situation. People are willing to take these extraordinary chances to become…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant's father had done a similar…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do…

— Kurt Vonnegut

The function of the artist is to make people like life better than they have before.

— Kurt Vonnegut

“I shouldn't be held responsible for my acts, since I was a political idiot, an artist who could not distinguish between reality…

— Kurt Vonnegut

I think... it is somehow very useful, and maybe even essential, for a fine artist to have to somehow make his peace…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born and, once born, demanding to be fruitful ... to multiply…

— Kurt Vonnegut

I want you to adore the Universe, to be easily delighted, but to be prompt as well with impatience with those artists…

— Kurt Vonnegut

The paintings by dead men who were poor most of their lives are the most valuable pieces in my collection. And if…

— Kurt Vonnegut

I'm an old guy, and I was protesting during the Vietnam War. We killed fifty Asians for every loyal American. Every artist…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you have a rewarding time, or you don't. You don't have…

— Kurt Vonnegut

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing…

— Kurt Vonnegut

During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we've ever been in - and which we lost - every respectable…

— Kurt Vonnegut