On the environment:
Anyone who has studied science and talks to scientist notices that we are in terrible danger now. Human beings, past and present, have trashed the joint.
The biggest truth to face now – what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my life – is that I don’t think people give a damn whether the planet goes on or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.
On reality TV:
I was once asked if I had any ideas for a really scary reality TV show. I have one reality show that would make your hair stand on end: “C-Students from Yale.”
On humanity:
Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn’t even seen the First World War. War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.
Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don’t you wish you could have something named after you?
Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people, too. I am a veteran of the Second World War and I have to say this is not the first time I have surrendered to a pitiless war machine.
My last words? “Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse.”
On smoking:
Here’s the news: I am going to sue the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only twelve years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me.
But now I am eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick, and Colon.
On the arts:
We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I’m kidding.
If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
On his own epitaph:
Do you know what a humanist is? … We humanists try to behave as decently, as fairly, and as honorably as we can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. … I am, incidently, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, “Isaac is up in heaven now.” It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in heaven now”. That’s my favorite joke.
…
If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC
I loved Kurt Vonnegut’s work. I have never forgotten reading Cat’s Cradle or Slaughter House 5.
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About 12 years ago I worked in NYC. I was having launch at a McDonalds around 60th St and 3rd Ave. I looked behind me while ordering and there was Kurt Vonnuegut having lunch with a young child, which I assumed was his grand son. I am not an avid reader compared to most, but all I could wonder was does anyone else in that McDonalds realize that is Kurt Vonnegut. I wanted to walk up to him and say something, but decided against it. He was enjoying time with someone he cared about and I did not want to Interrupt so I smiled and tucked this memory away not to be forgotten.
But read 4-5 others… went scavenging for quotes and founds this one, which seems much more appropriate now than it did the summer after Freshman year when I read breakfast of champions:
…the Sueddeutsche Zeitung here in Munich (Munich’s newspaper of record) had a major article (sorry, German) about Mr. Vonnegut, first page of their arts section.
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I first read Schlachthof Funf–Slaughterhouse Five–when I was a teenager, and did not understand the context, and found it boring. I later read the book after I understood the context, and found it wonderful.
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NB: I don’t usually do epitaphs, but to me the best epitaph that I have ever read was that of Thomas Jefferson. He wanted to be remembered for three things, the most important of which was that he was the author of Virginia’s statute of religious freedom. My how the things have changed in the USofA since then.
to worship the God of George W. Bush’s choosing?