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Quotes of the Day for 11 November 2004 - Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr was born at Indianapolis on this day in 1922. In high school he wrote for the daily school paper, then went on to Cornell but couldn't connect with the subjects his father had pushed him to pursue although he enjoyed writing for the Cornell Daily Sun. He joined the army and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He survived the fire bombing of Dresden huddled in an underground meat locker, the genesis of Slaughterhouse Five. After the war he studied anthropology at the University of Chicago where the faculty unanimously rejected his thesis in 1946 - they decided to grant his Masters degree in 1971 based on Cat's Cradle. Vonnegut turned to writing full time in 1951 with great success starting in the '60s. I'm one of many that will always display a wry smile when I hear the phrase "Breakfast of Champions."

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

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, And don't put up with people that are reckless with yours.

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

The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow.

People have to talk about something just to keep their good voice boxes in working order, so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.
     - All from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

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