KURT VONNEGUT

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

Breakfast of Champions

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His military training was useless, despite all the medals he won. The armed forces knew he was a homosexual, that he was certain to fall in love with other fighting men, and the armed forces didn't want to put up with such love affairs.

KURT VONNEGUT

“Ladies & Gentlemen of A.D. 2088”

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1. Reduce and stabilize your population.

2. Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.

3. Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.

4. Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.

5. Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.

6. Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean, and stupid.

7. And so on. Or else.

KURT VONNEGUT

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Don't worry about your father. He's a perfectly contented, self-sufficient zombie.

KURT VONNEGUT

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We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective.

KURT VONNEGUT
From a 2003 speech at the University of Wisconsin - Madison

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I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to become a professional writer. I say to you, “If you really want to hurt your parents - and you don’t have the nerve to be a homosexual - the least you can do is go into the arts.” But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.