# Quote — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

> Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"
>
> "That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
>
> "Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.
>
> "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." (pp. 76-77)

- Author: [Kurt Vonnegut](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut.md)
- Book: [Slaughterhouse-Five](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/slaughterhouse-five.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five#Chapter_4) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/slaughterhouse-five/billy-licked-his

## More from this book

> Billy had a framed prayer on his office wall which expressed his method for keeping going, even though he was unenthusiastic about living. A lot of patients who saw the prayer on Billy's wall told him that it helped them to keep going, too. It went like this: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference."
>
> Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future. (p. 60)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/slaughterhouse-five/billy-had-a-framed.md)

> As part of the gun crew, he had helped to fire one shot in anger — from a 57-millimeter antitank gun. The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty. The gun lapped up snow and vegetation with a blowtorch thirty feet long. The flame left a black arrow on the ground, showing the Germans exactly where the gun was hidden. The shot was a miss. (p. 34)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/slaughterhouse-five/as-part-of-the.md)

> I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee.
>
> I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that. (p. 19)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/slaughterhouse-five/i-have-told.md)