Kurt Vonnegut Quotes About Giving

Quotes about: Giving

• I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Giving, Earth Day, Environmental

• For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Christian, Jesus, Blessed

• Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Encouragement, Giving Up, Communication

  Kurt Vonnegut (2010). “Bluebeard”, p.34, Random House

• All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States - and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!

  Kurt Vonnegut

  People, Giving, Atheism

• Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Writing, Should Have, Giving

  Kurt Vonnegut (1999). “Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction”, Putnam Publishing Group

• Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Writing, Character, Roots

  Kurt Vonnegut (1999). “Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction”, Putnam Publishing Group

• 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 can see where influential people would like Maharishi better than Jesus. My God, if the Beatles and Mia Farrow went to Jesus, He'd tell them to give all their money away.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Jesus, Giving, People

• I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy - because we're experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And that's what's going on now.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Years, Iraq, Giving

  Interview with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show", September 13, 2005.

• I'd like to teach Iraq about Democracy because we're so experienced with it. First they should know that after 100 years they should free their slaves. Then after 150 years they should give their women the right to vote. Oh, and of course when they start it all they should begin with some genocide and ethnic cleansing.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Life, Years, Iraq

• I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve. The best idea in that apple, though, is making jazz.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Ideas, Apples, Giving

  Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.84, Penguin

• 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 didn't really like life at all.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Mother, Giving, Ungrateful

  KURT VONNEGUT JR (1969). “SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE”

• We don't make bicycles anymore. It's all human relations now. The eggheads sit around trying to figure out new ways for everyone to be happy. Nobody can get fired, no matter what; and if somebody does accidentally make a bicycle, the union accuses us of cruel and inhuman practices and the government confiscates the bicycle for back taxes and gives it to a blind man in Afghanistan.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Men, Practice, Giving

• Billy covered his head with his blanket. He always covered his head when his mother came to see him in the mental ward - always got much sicker until she went away. It wasn’t that she was ugly, or had bad breath or a bad personality. She was a perfectly nice, standard-issue, brown-haired, white woman with a high school education. She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone through so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn’t really like life at all.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Mother, Nice, School

• So let's give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That'll teach bin Laden a lesson he won't soon forget.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Cutting, Giving, Lessons

  "Cold Turkey" by Kurt Vonnegut, inthesetimes.com. May 10, 2004.

• The biggest truth to face now - what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my life - is that I don't think people give a damn whether the planet goes or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Dream, Grandchildren, Thinking

  Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.70, Seven Stories Press

• What geography can give all Middle Westerners, along with the fresh water and topsoil, if they let it, is awe for an Edenic continent stretching forever in all directions. Makes you religious. Takes your breath away.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Religious, Giving, Water

  "Vonnegut at 80" by David Hoppe, www.nuvo.net. January 1, 2003.

• After that demonstration everybody was thinking, what's going to happen to these wonderful men who have been so useful to us? We have to give people something to do with life.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Men, Thinking, People

• You had to get everything exactly right or the editors would give you hell.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Editors, Giving, Hell

  "Front Page story: Chicago's City News office is shut" by Julian Borger, www.theguardian.com. January 2, 2006.

• If I were a physics teacher or a science teacher, it'd be on my mind all the time as how the hell we really got this way. It's a perfectly natural human thought and, okay, if you go into the science class you can't think this. Well, alright, as soon as you leave you can start thinking about it again without giving aid and comfort to the lunatic fringe of the Christian religion.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Christian, Teacher, Thinking

  "Kurt Vonnegut Judges Modern Society". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. January 23, 2006.

• You know, the Emancipation Proclamation was like giving freedom to domestic animals.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Animal, Giving, Emancipation Proclamation

• I learned how to make jokes because I wanted to give people as much fun as they did, and I guess I did, too.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Fun, People, Giving

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin