"I was hoping to build a country and add to its literature. That's why I served in World War II, and that's why I wrote books."
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Kurt Vonnegut quotes (page 49 of 49)
978 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"One of the things I'm going to say out there is how grateful I am - and how grateful the world is - for the tremendous gift of the black people, of jazz."
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"How important my books are or anybody's books are, I don't know. I don't think they are terribly important I think that they make people contented during the period they are reading them and this is worth something is to take care of somebody for a couple of hours."
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"What everybody is well advised to do is to not write about your own life, this is if you want to write fast. You will be writing about your own life anyway but you won't know it."
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"It seems to me divorce is so common now. It ought to be more institutionalized. It's like a head-on collision every time. It's supposed to be a surprise but it's commonplace."
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"I've been drawing all my life, just as a hobby, without really having shows or anything. It's just an agreeable thing to do, and I recommend it to everybody."
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"Literature is by definition opinionated. It is bound to provoke the arguments in many quarters, not excluding the hometown or even the family of the author."
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"Every writer has to write his speech."
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"My definition of a man's man is a man who knows gun safety, and we all did."
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"I learned how to make jokes because I wanted to give people as much fun as they did, and I guess I did, too."
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"Social class means a hell of a lot and upper class people - no matter how well [Franklin ] Roosevelt did - it was stylish to hate him."
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"There's almost nothing like native Midwesterner anywhere else in the world, except in Asia. They're miracles all in themselves."
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"You know, the Emancipation Proclamation was like giving freedom to domestic animals."
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"Well, we are terribly divided politically, yes, and, you know, I don't mean to intimidate you and your listeners but I have a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago."
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"George Bush and his gang imagine they are being political geniuses."
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"You know who was a hero? Franklin Roosevelt."
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"Truth can be really powerful stuff if you're not expecting it."
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"The most important message of a crucifix, to me anyway, was how unspeakably cruel supposedly sane human beings can be when under orders from a superior authority."
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