from Vonnegut's "Mother Night"

2022.10.27
THIS IS THE ONLY story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral; I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

[...]

There's another clear moral to this tale, now that I think about it: When you're dead you're dead.

And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.
Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

No young person on earth is so excellent in all respects as to need no uncritical love. Good Lord--as youngsters play their parts in political tragedies with casts of billions, uncritical love is the only real treasure they can look for.
Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

"People should be changed by world wars," I said, "else what are world wars for?"
Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

We saw a Veterans' Day parade down Fifth Avenue, and I heard Resi's laugh for the first time. [...] What struck her so funny was the drum majorettes, kicking at the moon, twitching their behinds, and twirling chromium dildos.
"I've never seen such a thing before," she said to me. "War must be a very sexy thing to Americans."
Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.
Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

I delivered my eulogy of [white supremacist youth leader] August Krapptauer, saying, incidentally, what I pretty much believe, that Krapptauer's sort of truth would probably be with mankind forever, as long as there were men and women around who listened to their hearts instead of their minds.
Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

"This day will go down in history!" said Jones.
"Every day goes down in history," said the boss.
Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive."
[...]
If you want to be a soldier in the Legions of God so much," I told him, "try the Salvation Army."
Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

R2-D2 finds love on Sesame Street (1980) pic.twitter.com/3OVVmxkPA7

— crazy ass moments in star wars history (@SW_Moment) October 25, 2022

on tumblr the cancerous myth of the nuclear family