A Word from Vonnegut

On the anniversary of one of the truly great authors’ birth–that being Kurt Vonnegut, in 1922–I leave you humble blog-goers a few words of wisdom from the man himself. Here’s hoping you’re having either a Happy Veteran’s Day, or a productive day (though since you’re on the blogosphere at present, let’s just say a fun day reading, shall we?). Cheers!

“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.'”

“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 do not care about them. You are not alone.'”

~Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut speaking at Case Western Reserve University (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Humanity

“A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age; he dies of being a man.” 

~Arland Ussher

A Touch of Madness

“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.” 

~Mark Twain

A portrait of the American writer Mark Twain taken by A. F. Bradley in New York, 1907. http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/publications/siycfall_05.pdf http://www.twainquotes.com/Bradley/bradley.html See also other photographs of Mark Twain by A. F. Bradley taken in March 1907 in New York on Mark Twain Project Online. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Resistance

“We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.”

~Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre (1950) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hindsight is 20/20

“The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.” 

~Mark Twain

A portrait of the American writer Mark Twain taken by A. F. Bradley in New York, 1907. See also other photographs of Mark Twain by A. F. Bradley taken in March 1907 in New York on Mark Twain Project Online. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Truth and Madness, Hand-in-Hand

“Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.”

~Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Imagination

“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.”

~Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin (Photo credit: Wikipedia. Photo by “Hajor”, from Meet-the-author Q&A session; Bookworks bookstore, Albuquerque, NM, USA; July 2004.)

Creation and Discovery

“Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true.” 
~William Inge

English: Portrait of William Inge. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hatred, Born of the Self

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.  What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”

~Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Beauty of Travel

“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds.  When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then.  People don’t have your past to hold against you.  No yesterdays on the road.”
~William Least Heat Moon

Author William Least Heat-Moon speaking in the Microsoft Auditorium of the Central Library, Seattle, Washington, 10 November 2008 (Photo credit: Joe Mabel, via Wikipedia)