Kurt Vonnegut

Human beings are about 1,000 times dumber and meaner than they think they are.

Kurt Vonnegut

Human beings will be happier – not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia.

Kurt Vonnegut

Humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be, to protect yourself.

Kurt Vonnegut

Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.

Kurt Vonnegut

I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead.

Kurt Vonnegut

I am the victim of a fortunate series of accidents.

Kurt Vonnegut

I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.

Kurt Vonnegut

I couldn’t survive my own pessimism if I didn’t have some kind of sunny little dream.

Kurt Vonnegut

I get up at 7:30 and work four hours a day. Nine to twelve in the morning, five to six in the evening. Businessmen would achieve better results if they studied human metabolism. No one works well eight hours a day. No one ought to work more than four hours.

Kurt Vonnegut

I had a friend who was a heavy drinker. If somebody asked him if he’d been drunk the night before, he would always answer offhandedly, ‘Oh, I imagine.’ I’ve always liked that answer. It acknowledges life as a dream.

Kurt Vonnegut