For my AP English summer reading we were summoned to pick a writer and study writing style by reading the author's best works. My decision to pick Kurt Vonnegut was totally unexpected, since I didn't really know him. I only heard of his name from an episode of My So-Called Life [Episode 14 "On the Wagon" when Rayanne's mom said Angela, Patty, Rayanne...and Ricky were in the same karass]. But I found that Kurt Vonnegut was really more than a writer, he was a philosopher. For example his criticism of religion through his creation of Bokonon [the religion from Cat's Cradle], questioned my own beliefs. I also like his dark humor in Slaughterhouse Five, the "world's greatest anti-war book.'
If you want to learn more about Kurt Vonnegut here's a really good site maintained by Marek Vit, a fellow Vonnegut lover. His site is complete with essays on character analysis, theme and style.
Quoted Material
Here's a list of quotes from Kurt Vonnegut's books...I think they're pretty funny, pretty sad, pretty dark...and some just tell you the truth. This is just a glimer of Kurt Vonnegut's genius, [I'm such a tease!] I hope they can enlighten you and then compell you to actually read one of his books. Enjoy!
"Me and Mike, ve vork in mine, Holy shit, ve have good time. Vunce a veek ve get our pay, Holy shit, no vork next day." - Slaughterhouse-Five "Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand." - Cat's Cradle "We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down." "If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts." "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." - Mother Night "History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again." "Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous." - Slapstick "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." "The two prime movers in the Universe are Time and Luck." "Roses are red and ready for plucking You're sixteen and ready for high school." - Breakfast of Champions "I think William Shakespeare was the wisest human being I ever heard of. To be perfectly frank, though, that's not saying much. We are impossibly conceited animals, and actually dumb as heck. Ask any teacher. You don't even have to ask a teacher. Ask anybody. Dogs and cats are smarter than we are." - Hocus Pocus "Pretend to be good always, and even God will be fooled." - God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater "We're not too young for love, just too young for about everything there is that goes with love." "Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Breakfast of Champions "Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery." - Breakfast of Champions "There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done. - Breakfast of Champions "Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules -- and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress." - Sirens of Titan "Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so. By the same token, though, I suppose that boulders and mountains and moons could be accused of being a little too phlegmatic." - Sirens of Titan "It is always pitiful when any human being falls into a condition hardly more respectable than that of an animal. How much more pitiful it is when the person who falls has had all the advantages!" - Sirens of Titan "Son--they say there isn't any royalty in this country, but do you want me to tell you how to be king of the United States of America? Just fall through the hole in a privy and come out smelling like a rose." - Sirens of Titan "The big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart." - Sirens of Titan "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." - Sirens of Titan "Take Care of the People, and God Almighty Will Take Care of Himself." - Sirens of Titan "Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God." - Sirens of Titan "A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." - Sirens of Titan
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