And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. (“How to Write with Style”. Essay, 1985)

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Another woman told Constant what it was the crowd felt it had a right to. 'We have a right to know what's going on!' she cried.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Any time I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, There goes a person who simply cannot stand being so goddamn lonely anymore.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Anyway—because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next—and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis—at any time of night or day.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

...a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Artists," he said, "are people who say, 'I can't fix my country or my state or my city, or even my marriage. But by golly, I can make this square of canvas, or this eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper, or this lump of clay, or these twelve bars of music, exactly what they ought to be!

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.