Friday, April 13, 2007

kurt vonnegut

died yesterday. i have only read two of his books (cat's cradle and slaughterhouse five), but i very much enjoyed them. (though it's been so long, i can barely remember them.) i found some quotes of his that i enjoyed and thought i'd post them:
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

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

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.

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. (Cat's Cradle)

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.(Breakfast of Champions)

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. (Hocus Pocus)

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. (Mother Night)

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. (Sirens of Titan)

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber. (Slaughterhouse Five)