15 Great Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Published at 8:04 AM on November 12, 2012

By Ryan Bort

Born Nov. 11, 1922, Kurt Vonnegut would have been 90 years old yesterday. The late writer was known for his quirky but practical sense of humanity, and through his fiction, non-fiction and speeches he was able to express his worldview in terms anyone could understand and appreciate.

In celebration of Vonnegut’s life, sense of humor and never-ending reservoir of wisdom, we’ve picked 15 of his greatest quotes from over the years.

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“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.”

"There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

"She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing."

"Here we are trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why."

"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything."

"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too."

“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?”

"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"

"All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental."

“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”

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

“One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.”

"So it goes."

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”

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