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Children Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

38 Children quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

All Children quotes Kurt Vonnegut’s page

Kurt Vonnegut uses sharp humor to criticize America’s past actions, calling the bombing of Nagasaki a grave injustice. He points out that wars are often imagined by older people, and he reminds us that the universe is huge enough for many perspectives, even a child’s voice.

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“Whenever my children complain about the planet to me, I say 'Shut up, I just got here myself'.”

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“What kind of a man would turn his daughter into an outboard motor?”

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“My soul insists that I mourn not a man but a child.”

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

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“i didn't need a timequake to teach me being alive was a crock of shit. i already knew that from my childhood…

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I'm wild again, beguiled again. A whimpering, simpering child again. Bewitched, bothered and bewildered, am I.

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“the people of the united states were...spoiled children, who are begging for a frightening but just daddy to tell them exactly what…

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“And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It…

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“Oh my God, you are a child. If we leave you alone here, you'll freeze to death, you'll starve to death''. And…

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Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings, lest they grow up expecting peace and order, and be eaten alive.

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“No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids…

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I used my daughter's crayons for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the…

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“He was revived eight times, and hanged nine. Only after the eighth hanging were his last bits of courage and dignity gone.…

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What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when…

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“I can think of another quickie education for a child, which, in its way, is almost as salutary: Meeting a human being…

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“FËDOR Mikhailovich Dostoevski, the Russian novelist, said one time that, "One sacred memory from childhood is perhaps the best education." I can…

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1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and…

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“Now, you can say that your Daddy is right and the other little child’s Daddy is wrong, but the Universe is an…

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“Mackay told us that the Children’s Crusade started in 1213, when two monks got the idea of raising armies of children in…

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I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor…

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“Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings...They are spying on real grownups all the time, learning what they fight about,…

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“The museums in children’s minds, I think, automatically empty themselves in times of utmost horror—to protect the children from eternal grief. For…

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“Yes, and our sister's sons are candid now about a creepy business which used to worry them a lot: They cannot find…

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“And I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects to the hundred lost children of San Lorenzo,…

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“Every child older than six knew the fork, and knew what the good guys did here, and what the bad guys did…

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But some of the nonsense was evil, since it concealed great crimes. For example, teachers of children in the United States of…

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“We are gathered here, friends,” he said, “to honor lo Hoon-yera Mora-toorz tut Zamoo-cratz-ya, children dead, all dead, all murdered in war.…

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Children get smashed for hours on some strictly limited aspect of the Great Big Everything, the Universe, such as water or snow…

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The youngest child in any family is always a jokemaker, because a joke is the only way he can enter into an…

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“The unity in every second of all time and all wandering mankind, all wandering womankind, all wandering children.”

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The most racist, nastiest act by the USA, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki. Not of Hiroshima, which might have…

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“Dear Friends: As one who has experimented extensively with life in the home and community, using real people in true-life situations, I…

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Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity." Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches…

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The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not. Military science, on the other hand,…

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“There are no dirty words in this book, except for 'hell' and 'God', in case someone is fearing that an innocent child…

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He was talking about the sign that said 'THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE.' 'All knew was that I didn't want my daughter…

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The most racist, nastiest act by America, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki. Not of Hiroshima, which might have had…

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You know — we've had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men…

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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…