Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.

Billy Pilgrim says that the Universe does not look like a lot of bright little dots to the creatures from Tralfamadore. The creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti. And Tralfamadorians don't see human beings as two-legged creatures, either. They see them as great millepedes - "with babies' legs at one end and old people's legs at the other," says Billy Pilgrim.

I've got at least one tiny corner of the universe I can make just the way I want it.

One of [ways being lucky] was to go to school during the Great Depression because teaching became a plum job.

I saw the destruction of Dresden. I saw the city before and then came out of an air-raid shelter and saw it afterward, and certainly one response was laughter. God knows, that's the soul seeking some relief.

The slaves were simply turned loose without any property. They were easily recognizable. They were black. They were suddenly free to go exploring.

The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms.