Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.

And Lots wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

Thats the point. Every kind of animal thinks its own kind of animal is wonderful. So people getting married think theyre wonderful, and that theyre going to have a baby-- thats wonderful, when actually theyre as ugly as rhinoceroses. Just because we think were so wonderful doesnt mean we really are. We could be really terrible animals and just never admit it because it would hurt so much.

Youre the man who stands on the street corner with a roll of toilet paper, and written on each square are the words, I love you. And each passer-by, no matter who, gets a square all his or her own. I dont want my square of toilet p

If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings, said the Tralfamadorian, I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by free will. Ive visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.

She turned to examine Dr. Breed, looking at him with helpless reproach. She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.

A winded, defeated-looking fat woman in filthy coveralls trudged beside us, hearing what Miss Pefko said. She turned to examine Dr. Breed, looking at him with helpless reproach. She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.

If people think nature is their friend then they sure dont need an enemy.

Your planets immune system is trying to get rid of you.

There is no peace, Im sorry to say. We find it. We lose it. We find it again. We lose it again.

The brainless serenity of charwomen and janitors working late at night came over us. In a messy world we were at least making our little corner clean.

Jesus of Nazareth told us to say these twelve words when we prayed: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. ... And for those words alone, he deserves to be called ;the Prince of Peace.

What made marriage so difficult back then was yet again that instigator of so many other sorts of heartbreak: the oversize brain.

Satan, he said, couldnt undo anything God had done. She could at least try to make existence for His little toys less painful. She could see what He couldnt: To be alive was to be either bored or scared stiff. So she filled an apple with all sorts of ideas that might at least relieve the boredom, such as rules for games with cards and dice, and how to fuck, and recipes for beer and wine and whiskey, and pictures of different plants that were smokeable, and so on. And instructions on how to make music and sing and dance real crazy, real sexy. And how to spout blasphemy when they stubbed their toes.Satan had a serpent give Eve the apple. Eve took a bite and handed it to Adam. Hee took a bite, and then they fucked.

You cant help it but you were born without a heart. At least you tried to believe what the people with hearts believed — so you were a good man just the same.

Billy covered his head with his blanket again. He always covered his head when his mother came to see him in the mental ward - always got much sicker until she went away...She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didnt really like life at all.

In an extended family, anybody can bug out of his own house for months, and still be among relatives. Nobody has to go on a hopeless quest for friendly strangers, which is what most Americans have to do.

I learned the joke at the core of American self-improvement: knowledge was so much junk to be processed one way or another at great universities. The real treasure the great universities offered was a lifelong membership in a respected artificial extended family.

The row was actually about everything in creation, but it had for its subject of the moment the boys mustache.