# Quote — Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

> About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.
>
> I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves "Freethinkers," which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, "If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?"
>
> I myself have written, "If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake."

- Author: [Kurt Vonnegut](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut.md)
- Book: [God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/god-bless-you-dr-kevorkian.md)
- Page: 80
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut#God_Bless_You,_Dr._Kevorkian_(1999)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/god-bless-you-dr-kevorkian/about-belief-or-lack

## More from this book

> His plan? To pass out weapons to slaves, so they could overthrow their masters. Suicide.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/god-bless-you-dr-kevorkian/his-plan-to-pass.md)

> I wish one and all long and happy lives, no matter what may become of them afterwards. Use sunscreen! Don't smoke cigarettes. Cigars, however, are good for you … Firearms are also good for you … Gunpowder has zero fat and zero cholesterol. That goes for dumdums, too.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/god-bless-you-dr-kevorkian/i-wish-one.md)

> I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/god-bless-you-dr-kevorkian/i-asked-this.md)