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" One of the things that I tell beginning writers is this: If you describe a landscape, or a cityscape, or a seascape, always be sure to put a human figure somewhere in the scene. Why? Because readers are human beings, mostly interested in human beings. People are humanists. Most of them are humanists, that is. "

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" There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia. "

Kurt Vonnegut

Hope

Angels

Good

" The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest. "

" People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore. "

" When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed. "

" One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand. "

" Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything. "

" I don't plot my books rigidly, follow a preconceived structure. A novel mustn't be a closed system - it's a quest. "

Kurt Vonnegut

System

Quest

" I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers. "

" All writers are going to have to learn more about science, because it's such an interesting part of their environment. "

" I'm convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins. "

" There is never a shortage anywhere of lawyers eager to attack the First Amendment, as though it were nothing more than a clause in a lease from a crooked slumlord. "

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

" During most of my freelancing, I made what I would have made in charge of the cafeteria at a pretty good junior-high school. "

" Oh, sure, we have another world war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders this time? "

" I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different. "

" Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say? "

" I have no degree in biochemistry, neither do I have one in mechanical engineering, as the Army saw fit to terminate both courses before they were finished. "

" I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours. "

Kurt Vonnegut

Poor

Planet

" A chaplain's assistant is customarily a figure of fun in the American Army. "

" I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me. "

Kurt Vonnegut

Him

Dog

" I left the Middle West for Schenectady because the General Electric Company offered me a more congenial, better paying job than did anyone else. "

Kurt Vonnegut

Left

" 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 feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very much with his life anyway. The example usually is: he wasn't going to compose Beethoven's Fifth. "

" I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep. "

" Over the years, people I've met have often asked me what I'm working on, and I've usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden. "

" When I'm being funny, I try not to offend. I don't think much of what I've done has been in really ghastly taste. I don't think I have embarrassed many people or distressed them. "

" The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. "

" I get up at 7:30 and work four hours a day. Nine to twelve in the morning, five to six in the evening. Businessmen would achieve better results if they studied human metabolism. No one works well eight hours a day. No one ought to work more than four hours. "

" Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why. "

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