A first grader should understand that her or his culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society...Cultural relativity is defensible, attractive. It's a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it.
Kurt VonnegutYou are being suffocated by tradition... Why don't you say, 'I am going to build a life for myself, for my time, and make it a work of art'? Your life isn't a work of art ---it's a thirdhand Victorian whatnot shelf, complete with someone else's collection of seashells and hand-carved elephants.
Kurt VonnegutSwoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesnโt work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When theyโre done theyโre done.
Kurt VonnegutBilly had a framed prayer on his office wall which expressed his method for keeping going, even though he was unenthusiastic about living. A lot of patients who saw the prayer on Billyโs wall told him that it helped them to keep going, too. It went like this: โGod grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.โ Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.
Kurt Vonnegut