Kurt Vonnegut Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Country, Book, Names

  "A Man Without a Country". Book by Kurt Vonnegut (pp. 102-103), September 15, 2005.

• There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Slaughterhouse Five, Causes

  KURT VONNEGUT JR (1969). “SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE”

• Because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs. So people pretend there is drama where there is none.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Movie, Drama, Book

• There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Brother, Book, Needs

• A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Eye, Eight

  Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.133, Seven Stories Press

• There is no shortage of wonderful writers. What we lack is a dependable mass of readers.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Reading, Wonderful

  Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.194, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Moving, Book, Artist

• I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Grateful, Knack

  Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.138, Penguin

• There isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Love, Beautiful, Book

  KURT VONNEGUT JR (1969). “SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE”

• Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Flower, Book, Government

  KURT VONNEGUT, JR (1969). “SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE”

• The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?" It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period. This is it: "Nothing.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Thoughtful, Past

  Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.245, Dial Press

• Only in books do we learn what’s really going on.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book

  Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.103, Seven Stories Press

• Anyone unable to understand how useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Lying, Book, Cradle

• But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Spiritual, Sorry, Book

• I am beguiled by your physical beauty, and I am moved by how head-over-heels in love with books you are. And nowhere else have I found such thoughtful and literate reportage on the state of the American soul, as that soul makes itself known in the books we write.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Writing, Thoughtful

• The book was Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension, by Kilgore Trout. It was about people whose mental diseases couldn't be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn't see those causes at all, or even imagine them.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Doctors, People

  KURT VONNEGUT JR (1969). “SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE”

• Nothing in this book is true.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book

  "Cat's Cradle". Book by Kurt Vonnegut, 1963.

• Honest to God, Bill, the way things are going, all I can think of is that I'm a character in a book by somebody who wants to write about somebody who suffers all the time.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Character, Writing

  Kurt Vonnegut (1999). “Breakfast of Champions: Or, Goodbye Blue Monday!”, CNIB, 197

• There is this thing called the university, and everybody goes there now. And there are these things called teachers who make students read this book with good ideas or that book with good ideas until that's where we get our ideas. We don't think them; we read them in books. I like Utopian talk, speculation about what our planet should be, anger about what our planet is. I think writers are the most important members of society, not just potentially but actually. Good writers must have and stand by their own ideas.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Teacher, Book, Writing

• Listen:
  Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim

  Slaughterhouse-Five ch. 2 (1969)

• I was hoping to build a country and add to its literature. That's why I served in World War II, and that's why I wrote books.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Country, War, Book

  Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations”, p.140, Melville House

• My country is in ruins. So I'm a fish in a poisoned fishbowl. I'm mostly just heartsick about this. There should have been hope. This should have been a great country. But we are despised all over the world now. I was hoping to build a country and add to its literature. That's why I served in World War II, and that's why I wrote books.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Country, War, Book

  Source: www.penguinrandomhouse.com

• People who are wary of what they might find in a book if they opened one are right to be.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, People, Might

  Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.62, Penguin

• I'm eighty-three and homeless. It was the same when World War II ended. The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people's discharges and stuff. And my feeling was "Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?" That what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. Please, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now? I've wondered where home is. It's when I was in Indianapolis when I was nine years old. Had a dog, a cat, a brother, a sister.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Dog, Brother, War

• That's what my books are, now that I'm a grownup - mosaics of jokes.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Mosaics, Jokes

  Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.192, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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