Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

So I went to New York City to be born again. It was and remains easy for most Americans to go somewhere else and start anew. I wasn't like my parents. I didn't have any supposedly sacred piece of land or shoals of friends to leave behind. Nowhere has the number zero been of more philisophical value than in the United States.... and when the [train] plunged into a tunnel under New York City, with it's lining of pipes and wires, I was out of the womb and into the birth canal.

As I spoke of another's love and looked into the wide, blue windows of her soul, a rich, insistent yearning flooded my senses.--"Tango

Maturity, the way I understand it, is knowing what your limitations are.

May I ask you a highly personal question?""It's what life does all the time.

Artists," he said, "are people who say, 'I can't fix my country or my state or my city, or even my marriage. But by golly, I can make this square of canvas, or this eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper, or this lump of clay, or these twelve bars of music, exactly what they ought to be!

The humanoids told Don that if he went home with a whore, she would cook him a meal of petroleum and coal products at fancy prices. And then, while he ate them, she would talk dirty about how fresh and full of natural juices the food was, even though the food was fake.

As the new Adam, it might be said, his final act was to cast the Apple of Knowledge into the deep blue sea.

The most exquisite pleasure in the practice of medicine comes from nudging a layman in the direction of terror, then bringing him back to safety again.

And I am now compelled to wonder if wisdom has ever existed or can ever exist. Might wisdom be as impossible in this particular universe as a perpetual-motion machine?

Flashlight beams danced crazily

My God, what have they done to you? This isn't a man, it's a broken kite.

Things stayed peaceful in there, even as the crashing vehicles and the cries of the injured and dying reached a crescendo outside. "I fry mine in butter!" indeed.

Every so often, in the midst of chaos, you come across an amazing, inexplicable instance of civic responsibility. Maybe the last shred of faith people have is in their firemen.

The 2 prime movers in the Universe are Time and Luck.As the tag line of my favorite dirty joke would have it: "Keep your hat on. We could wind up miles from here.

If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other people's vanity and foolishness.

You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do.

There Bomar is, wherever he is, spending a fortune every day on liquor and beautiful women and expensive playthings, when he could find peace of mind right here with us, for a mere twenty cents.--"Bomar

Vera had not sensed my approach. She was peering into the instrument and turning knobs with child-like seriousness and ineptitude. It was obvious that she had never used a microscope before. I stole closer to her, and then I said, "Boo!"She jerked her head away from the eyepiece."Hello," I said."You scared me to death," she said."Sorry," I said, and I laughed.These ancient games go on and on. It's nice they do.