Verified Quotes
Every quote on this page is verified against the named source work.
Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist who survived the firebombing of Dresden and answered the century's cruelty with jokes,, gets quoted everywhere and sourced almost nowhere. The 16 quotes below are different: each one is checked word for word against the cited work, starting with Slaughterhouse-Five, not copied from aggregator sites that pass misattributions along. The source is named under every line, so you can trace each quote back to the page it came from.
Read Kurt Vonnegut's full profile and how they reason →4 verified quotes
On absorbing another loss without pretending it does not hurt:
So it goes.Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
On the numbness that follows a trauma before the grief arrives:
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Deciding whether to keep searching for meaning in a tragedy that may not have one:
There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Finding a way to hold onto someone who is gone without pretending the good moments didn't happen:
All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
1 verified quote
On noticing the persona you put on has become who you actually are:
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
3 verified quotes
On taking a risk instead of playing it safe your whole career:
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
On feeling unqualified next to peers who seem to have it together:
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
On permission to waste an afternoon:
We are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
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On following an unplanned detour that turns out to matter:
Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
Deciding what to do with hard-won expertise that hasn't made you any wiser:
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
Noticing how your life keeps tangling with the same handful of people for a reason:
Nice, nice, very nice, so many different people in the same device.Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
1 verified quote
On checking whether your ambitions are making you a worse person:
We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
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On choosing humor to get through a hard week:
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday
2 verified quotes
Simplifying an overcomplicated decision down to whether it is kind:
There's only one rule that I know of, babies-God damn it, you've got to be kind.Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Deciding whether to reach out to someone who seems to be struggling alone:
Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
1 verified quote
Deciding between comfortable idleness and work that actually needs you:
The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody.Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan