Kurt Vonnegut's Quotes

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.


The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.

Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.

The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

To whom it may concern: It is springtime. It is late afternoon.