A joke is like building a mousetrap from scratch. You have to work pretty hard to make the thing snap when it is supposed to snap.

Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.

Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.

Everybody knows that the dumbest people in any American university are in the education department, and English after that.

Some persons seem to like you, and others seem to hate you, and you must wonder why. They are simply liking machines and hating machines.

There was a message written in pencil on the tiles by the roller towel. This was it: What is the purpose of life? Trout plundered his pockets for a pen or pencil. He had an answer to the question. But he had nothing to write with, not even a burnt match. So he left the question unanswered, but here is what he would have written, if he had found anything to write with: To be the eyes and ears and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool.

We're a terribly lonesome society. For all I know, all societies are. You can make a few new friends, that's all. You can't change history. History is happening to us now.