Kurt Vonnegut Jr. fue un escritor estadounidense, cuyas obras, generalmente adscritas al género de la ciencia ficción, participan también de la sátira y la comedia negra. Es autor de catorce novelas, entre las que destacan Las sirenas de Titán , Matadero cinco y El desayuno de los campeones . Como ciudadano, toda su vida fue seguidor de la Unión Estadounidense por las Libertades Civiles.[1] Era conocido por sus ideas humanistas y fue presidente honorario de la Asociación Humanista Estadounidense.[2] Wikipedia
“We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.”
Kurt Vonnegut libro Breakfast of Champions
Kilgore Trout's epitaph
Unsourced paraphrase or variant: We are human only to the extent that our ideas remain humane.
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Kurt Vonnegut libro The Sirens of Titan
Fuente: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 10 “An Age of Miracles” (p. 216)
Kurt Vonnegut libro The Sirens of Titan
Epilogue “Reunion with Stony” (p. 313)
The Sirens of Titan (1959)
Kurt Vonnegut libro Player Piano
Fuente: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 18 (p. 169)
“When you're dead you're dead.”
Kurt Vonnegut libro Mother Night
Introduction (1966)
Mother Night (1961)
“Old Norwegian Proverb: Swedes have short dicks but long memories.”
Kurt Vonnegut libro A Man Without a Country
A Man Without a Country (2005)
Kurt Vonnegut libro A Man Without a Country
A Man Without a Country (2005)
Kurt Vonnegut libro Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
“Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97: Wear sunscreen.”
Opening words to a commencement address supposedly given by Vonnegut at M.I.T., but actually based on Mary Schmich's June 1, 1997 column for the Chicago Tribune
Misattributed
Kurt Vonnegut libro God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
In A Man Without a Country (2005) p. 80–81 Vonnegut makes a very similar statement:
How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus, as all humanists do. "If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?"
But if Christ hadn't delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn't want to be a human being.
I'd just as soon be a rattlesnake.
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
“In the nightmare of a warring world, it takes peculiar skills to get along.”
Kurt Vonnegut libro Armageddon in Retrospect
Story: "The commandant's desk" - p.193
Armageddon in Retrospect (2008)
Kurt Vonnegut libro Armageddon in Retrospect
"At Clowes Hall, Indianapolis, April 27 2007" - p.22 [Page numbers per the 2008 Jonathan Cape hardback edition.]
(From a speech written by Kurt Vonnegut before his death but delivered posthumously on his behalf by son Mark Vonnegut.)
Armageddon in Retrospect (2008)
“You must all take instructions from me!”
the conscience shrieks, in effect, to all the other mental processes. The other processes try it for a while, note that the conscience is unappeased, that it continues to shriek, and they note, too, that the outside world has not been even microscopically improved by the unselfish acts the conscience has demanded. They rebel at last. They pitch the tyrannous conscience down an oubliette, weld shut the manhole cover of that dark dungeon. They can hear the conscience no more. In the sweet silence, the mental processes look about for a new leader, and the leader most prompt to appear whenever the conscience is stilled, Enlightened Self-interest, does appear. Enlightened Self-interest gives them a flag, which they adore on sight. It is essentially the black and white Jolly Roger, with these words written beneath the skull and crossbones, 'The hell with you, Jack, I've got mine!"
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
