"He became fubar in the classic way, which is to say that he was the victim of a temporary arrangement that became permanent."
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Kurt Vonnegut quotes (page 40 of 49)
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"I hope that my ideas attract a lively dialogue, even if my sentences are simple. Simple sentences have always served me well. And I don't use semicolons. It's hard to read anyway, especially for high school kids. Also, I avoid irony, too. I don't like people saying one thing and meaning the other."
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"I'm an old guy, and I was protesting during the Vietnam War. We killed fifty Asians for every loyal American. Every artist worth a damn in this country was terribly opposed to that war, finally, when it became evident what a fiasco and meaningless butchery it was."
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"There are lots of things worth doing that are no way to make a living. They are agreeable ways to make a more agreeable life."
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"Powers Hapgood had just come from court because there was some kind of dust-up on a picket line. The judge was so curious about him - coming from a rich family - why he would choose to live as he had. I guess you know what his answer was ..."The Sermon on the Mount, sir." That's important."
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"It used to be said of a man who had suffered a catastrophic setback in his line of work that he had been handed his head on a platter. We are being handed our heads with tweezers now."
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"Start [writing] as close to the end as possible."
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"One thing in the Middlewest: If you're in my business you're aware of the low opinion both coasts have of the midlands. And that is quite mistaken. New York would be a Kokomo if it weren't for Middlewesterners coming there."
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"You've got to be a good date for the reader."
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"in nonsense is strength"
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"Love is where you find it."
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"Well, it's practically over, thank God - I'm 83, there won't be that much more of it to put up with I don't think!"
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"People should practice an art in order to make their souls grow and not to make money or become famous. Paint a picture. Write."
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"Novelists are people who have discovered that they can dampen their neuroses by writing make-believe. We will keep on doing that no matter what, while offering loftier explanations."
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"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."
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"I have been a writer since 1949. I am self-taught. I have no theories about writing that might help others. When I write, I simply become what I seemingly must become. I am six feet two and weigh nearly two hundred pounds and am badly coordinated, except when I swim. All that borrowed meat does the writing. In the water I am beautiful."
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"No matter how wonderful a sentence is, if it doesn't add new and useful information, it should be removed."
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"You have to go, but I have to stay."
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"The surface of Earth heaved and seethed in fecund restlessness. Earth was most fertile where the most death was."
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"But anyway, it's obvious through human experience that extended families and tribes are terribly important. We can do without an extended family as human beings about as easily as we can do without vitamins or essential minerals."
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