The canary bird in the coal mine theory of the arts: artists should be treasured as alarm systems.
Kurt VonnegutI've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.
Kurt Vonnegut[Ayres] was our city because we were building it. That's how I felt when I walked around town.
Kurt VonnegutThe feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged, I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the quad. And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors, and they are squeamish about technology to this very day. So it is natural for them to despise science fiction.
Kurt VonnegutBut thereโs a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece: itโs that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here [indicates blackboard]. The truth is, we know so little about life, we donโt really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.
Kurt Vonnegut