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
A Man Without a Country (2005)
Contexto: 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.
“Labor history was pornography of a sort in those days, and even more so in these days.”
Fonte: Jailbird (1979), p. 12 (prologue)
Contexto: 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.
“Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power.”
Cold Turkey (2004)
Contexto: Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
Mother Night (1961)
Contexto: "You hate America, don't you?" she said.
"That would be as silly as loving it," I said. "It's impossible for me to get emotional about it, because real estate doesn't interest me. It's no doubt a great flaw in my personality, but I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to the human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will."
“When the excrement hit the air conditioner”
Recurring phrase throughout many chapters
Hocus Pocus (1990)
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Contexto: I was on par with the Creator of the Universe there in the dark in the cocktail lounge. I shrunk the Universe to a ball exactly one light-year in diameter. I had it explode. I had it disperse itself again.
Ask me a question, any question. How old is the Universe? It is one half-second old, but the half-second has lasted one quintillion years so far. Who created it? Nobody created it. It has always been here.
What is time? It is a serpent which eats its tail, like this:
This is the snake which uncoiled itself long enough to offer Eve the apple, which looked like this:
What was the apple which Eve and Adam ate? It was the Creator of the Universe.
And so on.
Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes.
Cold Turkey (2004)
Contexto: I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren’t crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls’ basketball.
Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
Galápagos (1985)
Contexto: Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people's actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be. So the Galapagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven in the next, and Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next — and on and on.
“All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.”
Timequake (1997)
“Things don't stay the way they are," said Finnerty. "It's too entertaining to try to change them.”
Fonte: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 34 (p. 313)
Fonte: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 3 “United Hotcake Preferred” (p. 78)
Originates in a 2007 blog post by Iain S. Thomas entitled The Fur http://www.iwrotethisforyou.me/2007/08/fur.html
Misattributed
“If you actually are an educated, thinking person, you will not be welcome in Washington DC.”
A Man Without a Country (2005)
“And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.”
Fonte: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 32 (p. 295)
Fonte: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 3 “United Hotcake Preferred” (p. 72)
He asked if it had a name, and I said “Indianapolis.”
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
Epilogue “Reunion with Stony” (p. 313)
The Sirens of Titan (1959)
As quoted in "Vonnegut's Blues For America" Sunday Herald (7 January 2006)
Various interviews
“George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography.”
A Man Without a Country (2005)
“Humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be.”
A Man Without a Country (2005)
As quoted in Science Fictionisms (1995), compiled by William Rotsler
Various interviews
