1,579 Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

I think big business is a terrible thing for the spirit of the country, as our spirit is the best thing about us.

I was taught in the sixth grade that we had a standing army of just over a hundred thousand men and that the generals had nothing to say about what was done in Washington. I was taught to be proud of that and to pity Europe for having more than a million men under arms and spending all their money on airplanes and tanks. I simply never unlearned junior civics. I still believe in it. I got a very good grade.

The arts are not a way to make a living,

all that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television, we can hide a great depression. we may even be hiding a third world war

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

Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.

He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next

I am a monopolar depressive descended from monopolar depressives. That's how come I write so good.

The chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was too late, how heartless and greedy they were.