There is this feeling that I have a destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life.
Kurt VonnegutNowadays, of course, just about our only solvent industry is the merchandising of death, bankrolled by our grandchildren, so that the message of our principal art forms, movies and television and political speeches and newspaper columns, for the sake of the economy, simply has to be this: War is hell, all right, but the only way a boy can become a man is in a shoot-out of some kind, preferably, but by no means necessarily, on a battlefield.
Kurt VonnegutOh, God — the lives people try to lead. Oh, God — what a world they try to lead them in.
Kurt VonnegutThe library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm.
Kurt Vonnegut