Kurt Vonnegut

"Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been."

"Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done."

"1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them."

"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 last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon."

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

"To be is to do - SocratesTo do is to be - SartreDo Be Do Be Do - Sinatra"

"If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind."

"You are better than you think. A-one, a-two a-three."

"1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them."

"When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said, "You think your dad's a good chemist? They're turning soda crackers into meat in there. Can your dad do that?"

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake."

"I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool."

"Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference."

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

"Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer."

"Lot's 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."

"There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia."

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."(George Santayana)I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive."

"The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected."