Kurt Vonnegut Jr. foi um escritor estadunidense de ascendência germânica.
Concluída a formação em Química, alistou-se no exército e combateu na Segunda Guerra Mundial. Feito prisioneiro, presenciou o bombardeamento de Dresden. Após a Guerra, formou-se em Antropologia.
É autor de vários romances, ensaios e peças de teatro, entre os quais se destacam Player Piano de 1952, Cat’s Cradle de 1963, Slaughterhouse-Five de 1969, Breakfast of Champions de 1973 e Galápagos de 1985. Sua última obra foi Look at the Birdie de 2009, livro póstumo com uma coleção de contos e ensaios.
Vonnegut morreu em 11 de abril de 2007, semanas após uma queda em sua casa em Manhattan que resultou em graves complicações cerebrais.
“Humanista é uma pessoa com grande interesse pelos seres humanos. Meu cachorro é humanista.”
I have found that a humanist is a person who is tremendously interested in human beings. My dog is a humanist.
citado em "The Vonnegut encyclopedia: an authorized compendium" - Página 311, de Marc Leeds - Greenwood Press, 1995, ISBN 0313292302, 9780313292309 - 693 páginas
There in the cocktail lounge, peering out through my leaks at a world of my own invention, I mouthed this word: schizophrenia. The sound and appearance of the word had fascinated me for many years. It sounded and looked to me like a human being sneezing in a blizzard of soapflakes.
Breakfast of champions: or, Goodbye blue Monday! - Página 198, Kurt Vonnegut - Delacorte Press, 1973 - 295 páginas
“Esta provavelmente é a história da minha vida: falta de determinação suficiente.”
that's probably the story of my life: not enough determination.
Breakfast of champions: or, Goodbye blue Monday! - Página 110, Kurt Vonnegut - Delacorte Press, 1973 - 295 páginas
“We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.”
Kilgore Trout's epitaph
Unsourced paraphrase or variant: We are human only to the extent that our ideas remain humane.
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Fonte: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 10 “An Age of Miracles” (p. 216)
Epilogue “Reunion with Stony” (p. 313)
The Sirens of Titan (1959)
“When you're dead you're dead.”
Introduction (1966)
Mother Night (1961)
“Old Norwegian Proverb: Swedes have short dicks but long memories.”
A Man Without a Country (2005)
“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
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.”
Story: "The commandant's desk" - p.193
Armageddon in Retrospect (2008)
"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)
