# Quote — Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

> I am about to do a very un-ambassadorial thing ... I am about to tell you what I really feel. ... We are gathered here, friends ... to honor [the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy], children dead, all dead, all murdered in war. It is customary on days like this to call such lost children men. I am unable to call them men for this simple reason: that in the same war in which [the Martyrs] died, my own son died. My soul insists that I mourn not a man but a child.I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays.But they are murdered children all same.And I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects to the hundred lost children of San Lorenzo, that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind.Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns. ... [I]f today is really in honor of a hundred children murdered in war ... is today a day for a thrilling show? The answer is yes, on one condition: that we, the celebrants, are working consciously and tirelessly to reduce the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind.

- Author: [Kurt Vonnegut](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut.md)
- Book: [Cat's Cradle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cat's_Cradle#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle/i-am-about

## More from this book

> Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are 'It might have been.'

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle/of-all-the.md)

> “Maturity,” Bokonon tells us, “is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle/maturity-bokonon-tells.md)

> A pissant is somebody who thinks he’s so damn smart, he never can keep his mouth shut. No matter what anybody says, he’s got to argue with it. You say you like something, and, by God, he’ll tell you why you’re wrong to like it. A pissant does his best to make you feel like a boob all the time. No matter what you say, he knows better.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle/a-pissant-is-somebody.md)