264 quotes
Wars would be a lot better, I think, if guys would say to themselves sometimes "Jesus — I'm not going to do that to the enemy. That's too much."
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers — joined in the serious business of keeping our food, shelter, clothing and loved ones from combining with oxygen.
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
Cat's Cradle (1963)
It used to be said of a man who had suffered a catastrophic setback in his line of work that he had been handed his head on a platter. We are being handed our heads with tweezers now.
Timequake (1997)
About astrology and palmistry: They are good because they make people feel vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.
Bennington College address (1970)
If somebody says, "I love you", to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol-holder requires? "I love you, too".
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)
George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography.
A Man Without a Country (2005)
Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools, or health insurance for all?
A Man Without a Country (2005)
Hey — guess what: You're the only creature with free will. How does that make you feel?
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
A joke is like building a mousetrap from scratch. You have to work pretty hard to make the thing snap when it is supposed to snap.
A Man Without a Country (2005)
Evolution is so creative. That's how we got giraffes.
A Man Without a Country (2005)
You couldn't help that you were born without a heart. At least you tried to believe what the people with hearts believed — so you were a good man just the same.
Jailbird (1979)
Labor history was pornography of a sort in those days, and even more so in these days. In public schools and in the homes of nice people it was and remains pretty much taboo to tell tales of labor's sufferings and derring-do.
Jailbird (1979)
These displaced people need something, and the clergy can't give it to them—or it's impossible for them to take what the clergy offers. The clergy says it's enough, and so does the Bible. The people say it isn't enough, and I suspect they're right.
Player Piano (1952)
He was a graduate of West Point, a military academy which turned young men into homicidal maniacs for use in war.
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Kilgore's Creed: "You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do."
Timequake (1997)
There is a similarity between writers and SDS [Students for a Democratic Society, a left-wing group]: Plenty of paranoia, but no ideas.
You are pooped and demoralized. Why wouldn't you be? Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
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 don't care about them. You are not alone."
Timequake (1997)