Kurt Vonnegut quotes about art
American Author, Writer November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut quotes in frenchKurt Vonnegut quotes in russian
Cite this Page: Citation
Quotes
If you want to really hurt you 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 possible can. You will get an enormous...
Kurt Vonnegut
I congratulate you people on being in the raging mainstream of the arts. It is commercial artists like myself who operate in the backwaters. I inhabit still, tepid waters clogged with dollar bills. I never see people. I've forgotten all about them. Guard yourself at all times. A lot of people believe that beauty is some kind of conspiracy -- along with friendly laughter and peace. Cheers --(Signed)Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
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.
Kurt Vonnegut
Nowadays, of course, just about our only solvent industry is the merchandising of death, bankrolled by our grandchildren, so that the message of our principal art forms, movies and television and political speeches and newspaper columns, for the sake of the economy, simply has to be this: War is hell, all right, but the only way a boy can become a man is in a shoot-out of some kind, preferably, but by no means necessarily, on a battlefield.
Kurt Vonnegut
Tremendous concentrations of paper wealth have made it possible for a few persons or institutions to endow certain sorts of human playfulness with inappropriate and hence distressing seriousness. I think not only of the mudpies of art, but of children's games as well-running, jumping, catching, throwing. Or dancing. Or singing songs.
Kurt Vonnegut
I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how tobecome a professional writer. I say to you, "If you really want to hurt yourparents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you cando is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestitehermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you'vebeen to college.
Kurt Vonnegut
I'm on the New York State Council for the Arts now, and every so often some other member talks about sending notices to college English departments about some literary opportunity, and I say, "Send them to the chemistry departments, send them to the zoology departments, send them to the anthropology departments and the astronomy departments and physics departments, and all the medical and law schools. That's where the writers are most likely to be.
Kurt Vonnegut
There's no question about it. The arts are an extremely high-risk situation. People are willing to take these extraordinary chances to become writers, musicians or painters, and because of them we have a culture. If this ever stops, our culture will die, because most of our culture, in fact, has been created by people that got paid nothing for it-- People like Edgar Allan Poe, Vincent van Gogh or Mozart. So, yes, it's a very foolish thing to do, notoriously foolish, but it seems human to...
Kurt Vonnegut
- 1
- 2
Popular Author
Related Authors
-
Bret Easton Ellis Author, Writer
-
CS
C. S. Lewis Author, Writer
-
CM
Colleen McCullough Author, Writer
-
DS
Dan Simmons Author, Writer
-
DK
Dean Koontz Author, Writer
-
H. G. Wells Author, Writer
-
KI
Kazuo Ishiguro Author, Writer
-
Kurt Vonnegut Author, Writer
-
Marcel Proust Author, Writer
-
Terry Prachett Author, Writer