11 Things Nobody Could Say Better Than Kurt

I’ve been having the most horrible kind of writer’s block lately – the kind where you write and write and write, and pages upon pages roll off your fingertips, but the only things that come out are things you wouldn’t want to make your best friend in the entire world sit through.  Self-involved writing.  Of no good use to anyone, probably not even myself.  Not even with expansive editing.

I’ve also been in bed with the flu for pretty much the whole weekend, and I decided to take advantage of my incapacitation by catching up on my reading.  I don’t know if it’s the mental place I’m in, or if I’m just long overdue for a return to one of my favorite men ever, but all I want lately is Kurt Vonnegut.  I’ve placed an order for a few of his books I haven’t read yet, and I read a lot of essays and speeches online.  And I compiled this list  (in reverse order.  I know how people dearly love a good count-down).  If I've got nothing good of my own to say right now, at least I can pass on something that's inspired me. So here they are.  Some of my favorite life lessons.  I genuinely believe every one of these to express something essential and true.  And often kind of funny.  What a guy he was. 

11.  "I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer." 

"What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman?" 

10. "It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?"  

9.  "Where do I get my ideas from? You might as well have asked that of Beethoven. He was goofing around in Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden this stuff came gushing out of him. It was music. I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out. It was disgust with civilization."

8.  “Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.”

7.   "We went to the New York World's Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors. And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep."

6.   "Here is a lesson in creative writing.

First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. 

And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding. 

For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding. 

We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding. 

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." 

5.  "And 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."

4. "A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." 

3.  "Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think that money was so valuable?" 

2.  "Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you've got to be kind." 

1.  "Until you die .. it's all life."

Thanks, Kurt.  I'll keep trying.