Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be. It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich? There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.

Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency.

If somebody says I love you to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol holder requires? I love you, too.

And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. Its good for you.

Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDEDFOR THE EXISTENCE OF GODWAS MUSIC

How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;Man got to sit and wonder why, why, why?Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;Man got to tell himself he understand.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.

The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.

Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (George Santayana)Ive got news for Mr. Santayana: were doomed to repeat the past no matter what. Thats what it is to be alive.

Youll forget it when youre dead, and so will I. When Im dead, Im going to forget everything–and I advise you to do the same.

People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were only ugly things to do. They didnt own doodley-squat, so they couldnt improve their surroundings. so they did their best to make their insides beautiful instead.

Do you realize that all great literature — Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, A Farewell to Arms, The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Iliad and The Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible, and The Charge of the Light Brigade — are all about what a bummer it is to be a ...human being?

The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody. Thank you for using me, even though I didnt want to be used by anybody.

Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones.