Kurt Vonnegut — People

A lace-gloved hand holds a green telephone receiver with its coiled cord descending into a floral teacup. — Original artwork

I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.

Kurt Vonnegut

A small gray toy mouse sits beside an open birdcage, stacked books and a vase of dried stems against a dusty rose background. — Original artwork

Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse.

Kurt Vonnegut

Unmarked wooden ballot box with visible slot — Original artwork

There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nutcases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people ran for class president.

Kurt Vonnegut

A yellow and blue globe wearing a spotted party hat rests on a pink whoopee cushion against coral. — Original artwork

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.

Kurt Vonnegut

A slumped tin wind-up robot sits on yellow cloth beside a loose key and a small white flag. — Original artwork

We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard … and too damn cheap.

Kurt Vonnegut

A round black bead and a short curved copper piece rest on a pale pink square. — Original artwork

When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon.

Kurt Vonnegut

A lone soldier in a long greatcoat stands among the rubble of a bombed baroque city, looking down at a body under a blanket, a crow on a dead tree. — Original artwork

So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut

Three panels of one life: a young soldier in the snow, a bespectacled optometrist in a 1950s suit, and an old man in a glass dome among clocks drifting through time. — Original artwork

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

Kurt Vonnegut

A lone microphone stands in an empty wartime radio studio beneath a giant mask split into light and dark halves. — Original artwork

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

Kurt Vonnegut