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

More from Vonnegut once suggested carving this quote into a wall on the Grand Canyon, as a message for flying-saucer creatures.

• I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.
• Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse.
• 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.
• We are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.
• When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon.