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Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut was an American author known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works over fifty years; further works have been published since his death.
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culture · American author (1922–2007) · playwright · writer · screenwriter · novelist · essayist · science fiction writer · journalist · peace activist · philosopher · teacher · also Kurt Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Vonnegut
Born 11 November 1922 · Died 11 April 2007 · Q49074
89 published statements · 0 followers
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You go up to a man, and you say, 'How are things going, Joe?' And he says, 'Oh fine, fine—couldn't be better.' And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn't be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody's having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.
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2026· 19 entries
“You go up to a man, and you say, 'How are things going, Joe?' And he says, 'Oh fine, fine—couldn't be better.' And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn't be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody's having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.”
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“I would say, 'Is there anything I can do?'—but Skip once told me that that was the most hateful and stupid expression in the English language.”
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“I had hoped, as a broadcaster, to be merely ludicrous, but this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought , so eager to believe and snarl and hate. So many people wanted to believe me!”
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“If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?”
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“[My] mother thought she might make a new fortune by writing for the slick magazines. She took short-story courses at night. She studied writers the way gamblers study horses.”
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“Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something.”
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“The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don”
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“Christ-worshipping agnostic.”
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“other sorts of seemingly important work to do”
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“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
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“s, Knox Burger, and again sold it to the magazine, this time for $950. While Burger supported Vonnegut”
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“first fancy city [he had] ever seen”
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“When we came up the city was gone ... They burnt the whole damn town down.”
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“as corrosive as hydrochloric acid.”
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Netflix Junkie: “I’ve Never Released Them” - Tim Robbins Reveals Decades-Old Unreleased Interviews With Johnny Cash and Kurt Vonnegut
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WFYI: Purdue buys Kurt Vonnegut Museum in latest move to expand Indianapolis presence
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Purdue University: Purdue strengthens collaboration with Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library through site acquisition
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Forbes: Emotional Intelligence Quote Of The Week: Kurt Vonnegut On Bad News
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2024· 5 entries
Snopes rated the claim “Author Kurt Vonnegut once said: "We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost-effective."” Unproven (retired).
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The Guardian: ‘I thought it was a speech by Kurt Vonnegut’: Baz Luhrmann on making Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
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Snopes rated the claim “Novelist Kurt Vonnegut once told a story about buying one envelope at a time.” Correct Attribution.
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Yahoo: Fact Check: Kurt Vonnegut Once Told a Story About Buying 1 Envelope at a Time. Here's Why
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Yahoo: It's the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library's 15th anniversary. Here's how to celebrate
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2023· 1 entry
Collider: Why Aren't There More Kurt Vonnegut Movie & TV Adaptations?
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2022· 4 entries
The Guardian: ‘If masterpiece means anything, it means Cat’s Cradle’: the Kurt Vonnegut novels everyone should read
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NPR: Remembering author Kurt Vonnegut, who would have turned 100 on Friday
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The Guardian: Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time review – a satisfyingly intimate profile
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The Guardian: Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time review – novelist gets a heartfelt portrait
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2021· 3 entries
The Hollywood Reporter: ‘Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time’: Film Review
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The Guardian: Unstuck in Time: the Kurt Vonnegut documentary 40 years in the making
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The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis was designated a Literary Landmark by the Literary Landmarks Association
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2019· 4 entries
Awarded Prometheus Award - Hall of Fame (2019).
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The Guardian: 'Screw the snobbish literati': was Kurt Vonnegut a science-fiction writer?
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The Guardian: Reading group: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is our book for March
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Delves into the style, humor, and methodologies Vonnegut employed, including his belief that one should "Write like a human being
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2017· 1 entry
Seven Stories Press published Complete Stories, a collection of Vonnegut's short fiction
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2015· 1 entry
Awarded Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame (2015).
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2014· 1 entry
Hyperallergic: The Unseen Drawings of Kurt Vonnegut
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2013· 1 entry
Suggests that Vonnegut has only recently become the subject of serious study rather than fan adulation, and much is yet to be written about him
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2012· 1 entry
C&EN: Kurt Vonnegut
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2011· 1 entry
NPR wrote, "Kurt Vonnegut's blend of anti-war sentiment and satire made him one of the most popular writers of the 1960s
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2008· 1 entry
The Kurt Vonnegut Society was established, and in November 2010, the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library was opened in Vonnegut's hometown of Indianapolis
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2007· 7 entries
Died 2007-04-11.
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“All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States—and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!”
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“Jakiekolwiek byłoby źródło mej głupoty, jeszcze się nie wyczerpało.”
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“I have found that a humanist is a person who is tremendously interested in human beings. My dog is a humanist.”
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“Where is home? I've wondered where home is, and I realized, it's not Mars or someplace like that, it's Indianapolis when I was nine years old. I had a brother and a sister, a cat and a dog, and a mother and a father and uncles and aunts. And there's no way I can get there again.”
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“1. Find a subject you care about.2. Do not ramble, though.3. Keep it simple.4. Have the guts to cut.5. Sound like yourself.6. Say what you mean to say.7. Pity the readers.”
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“I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.”
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2001· 1 entry
Awarded Carl Sandburg Literary Award (2001).
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1999· 2 entries
Snopes rated the claim “Authors Dr. Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. were college classmates and fraternity brothers.” False.
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Wrote in The New York Times, "I had gone broke, was out of print and had a lot of kids
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1997· 2 entries
“a reflection of an aging man facing mortality and testimony to an embattled faith in the resilience of human awareness and agency.”
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“If flying-saucer creatures or angels or whatever were to come here in a hundred years, say, and find us gone like the dinosaurs, what might be a good message for humanity to leave for them, maybe carved in great big letters on a Grand Canyon wall? Here is this old poop's suggestion: WE PROBABLY COULD HAVE SAVED OURSELVES, BUT WERE TOO DAMNED LAZY TO TRY VERY HARD...AND TOO DAMNED CHEAP.”
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1992· 1 entry
Awarded Humanist of the Year (1992).
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1991· 3 entries
Awarded Mondello Prize (1991).
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“finally stopped laughing at his own agony and that of those around him. He denounced life on this planet as a crock. He died.”
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“We have become such a pitiless people,”
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1987· 1 entry
“My own feeling is that civilization ended in World War I, and we”
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1986· 1 entry
Vonnegut spoke at the dedication of the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library at the University of Evansville, where he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Letters
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1981· 1 entry
Awarded Eugene V. Debs Award (1981).
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1979· 1 entry
Vonnegut married Jill Krementz, a photographer whom he met while she was working on a series about writers in the early 1970s
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1976· 1 entry
His kidnapping by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore nine years earlier, and the execution of Billy's friend Edgar Derby in the ashes of Dresden for stealing a teapot—disclosed in the novel's first pages
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1973· 2 entries
Awarded Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation for Slaughterhouse-Five (1973).
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“Address to the American Physical Society”
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1972· 3 entries
Which exacerbated Vonnegut's chronic depression and led him to take Ritalin
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Universal Pictures adapted Slaughterhouse-Five into a film, which the author said was "flawless
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Beyond his failed marriage, Vonnegut was deeply affected when his son Mark suffered a mental breakdown in 1972, which exacerbated Vonnegut's chronic depression and led him to take Ritalin.
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1970· 4 entries
Awarded National Book Award for Slaughterhouse-Five (1970).
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Vonnegut taught at the City College of New York as a distinguished professor during the 1973–1974 academic year
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Vonnegut was also a correspondent in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War
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“s Theatre de Lys. Receiving mixed reviews, it closed on March 14, 1971. In 1972, Universal Pictures adapted Slaughterhouse-Five into a film, which the author said was”
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1969· 2 entries
Vonnegut gave a speech to the American Association of Physics Teachers called "The Virtuous Physicist
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The novel rocketed Vonnegut to fame
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1967· 1 entry
Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship (1967).
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1961· 2 entries
Was Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron," set in a dystopic future where all are equal, even if that means disfiguring beautiful people and forcing the strong or intelligent to wear devices that negate their advant
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Received little attention at the time of its publication
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1958· 1 entry
His sister, Alice, died of cancer two days after her husband, James Carmalt Adams, was killed in a train accident
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1957· 1 entry
And a partner opened a Saab automobile dealership on Cape Cod, but it went bankrupt by the end of the year
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1952· 2 entries
Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, was published by Scribner's
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“s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley heavily influenced his debut novel, Player Piano, in 1952. The novel also included ideas from mathematician Norbert Wiener”
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1949· 1 entry
Kurt and Jane had a daughter named Edith
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1945· 1 entry
Dresden became the target of British and American air forces
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1944· 1 entry
Vonnegut returned home on leave for Mother's Day weekend to discover that his mother had killed herself the previous night by overdosing on sleeping pills
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1940· 1 entry
Vonnegut enrolled at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York
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1922· 3 entries
Born 1922-11-11.
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The youngest of three children of Kurt Vonnegut Sr
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Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, on November 11, 1922, the youngest of three children of Kurt Vonnegut Sr. and his wife Edith (née Lieber).
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