Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007)
Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, came home, worked at a General Electric research lab, and started writing science fiction that wasn't really science fiction. Slaughterhouse-Five took him twenty-three years to write. Cat's Cradle invented a religion as a joke and then made it mean something. He drew pictures in his books, repeated himself on purpose, and treated the reader like a friend who deserved the truth. His sentences are simple. His ideas are not. He made despair funny and kindness radical, which is harder than it sounds.
Concepts
absurd, agency, authenticity, conformity, freedom, loneliness, love, meaning, rebellion, solidarity, totalitarianism
Quotes (8)
- “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” — Mother Night (1961)
- “So it goes.” — Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
- “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” — Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
- “Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder why, why, why? ...” — Cat's Cradle (1963)
- “There's only one rule that I know of, babies — God damn it, you've got to be ...” — God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
- “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever ...” — The Sirens of Titan (1959)
- “True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school clas...” — A Man Without a Country (2005)
- “I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell y...” — Timequake (1997)