Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Quote
Here is how I propose to end book-banning in this country once and for all: Every candidate for school committee should be hooked up to a lie detector and asked this question: Have you read a book from start to finish since high school? or Did you even read a book from start to finish in high school?If the truthful answer is no, then the candidate should be told politely that he cannot get on the school committee and blow off his big bazoo about how books make children crazy.Whenever ideas are squashed in this country, literate lovers of the American experiment write careful and intricate explanations of why all ideas must be allowed to live. It is time for them to realize that they are attempting to explain America at its bravest and most optimistic to orangutans.From now on, I intend to limit my discourse with dimwitted Savonarolas to this advice: Have somebody read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution out loud to you, you God damned fool!Well--the American Civil Liberties Union or somebody like that will come to the scene of trouble, as they always do. They will explain what is in the Constitution, and to whom it applies.They will win.And there will be millions who are bewildered and heartbroken by the legal victory, who think some things should never be said--especially about religion.They are in the wrong place at the wrong time.Hi ho.
Here is how I propose to end book-banning in this country once and for all: Every candidate for school committee should be hooked up to a lie detector and asked this question: Have you read a book from start to finish since high school? or Did you even read a book from start to finish in high school?If the truthful answer is no, then the candidate should be told politely that he cannot get on the school committee and blow off his big bazoo about how books make children crazy.Whenever ideas are squashed in this country, literate lovers of the American experiment write careful and intricate explanations of why all ideas must be allowed to live. It is time for them to realize that they are attempting to explain America at its bravest and most optimistic to orangutans.From now on, I intend to limit my discourse with dimwitted Savonarolas to this advice: Have somebody read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution out loud to you, you God damned fool!Well--the American Civil Liberties Union or somebody like that will come to the scene of trouble, as they always do. They will explain what is in the Constitution, and to whom it applies.They will win.And there will be millions who are bewildered and heartbroken by the legal victory, who think some things should never be said--especially about religion.They are in the wrong place at the wrong time.Hi ho.
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About Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Vonnegut attended Cornell University, but withdrew in January 1943 and enlisted in the U.S. Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden, where he survived the Allied bombing of the city in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. After the war, he married Jane Marie Cox. He and his wife both attended the University of Chicago while he worked as a night reporter for the City News Bureau.
Vonnegut published his first novel, Player Piano, in 1952. It received positive reviews yet sold poorly. In the nearly 20 years that followed, he published several well regarded novels including two—The Sirens of Titan (1959) and Cat's Cradle (1963)—that were nominated for the Hugo Award for best science fiction or fantasy novel of the year. He published a short-story collection, Welcome to the Monkey House, in 1968.
Vonnegut's breakthrough was his commercially and critically successful sixth novel, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Its anti-war sentiment resonated with its readers amid the Vietnam War, and its reviews were generally positive. It rose to the top of The New York Times Best Seller list and made Vonnegut famous. Later in his career, Vonnegut published autobiographical essays and short-story collections such as Fates Worse Than Death (1991) and A Man Without a Country (2005). He has been hailed for his dark humor commentary on American society. His son Mark published a compilation of his unpublished works, Armageddon in Retrospect, in 2008. In 2017, Seven Stories Press published Complete Stories, a collection of Vonnegut's short fiction.