Kurt Vonnegut

Drawn crudely in the dust of three window-panes were a swastika, a hammer and sickle, and the Stars and Stripes. I had drawn the three symbols weeks before, at the conclusion of an argument about patriotism with Kraft. I had given a hearty cheer for each symbol, demonstrating to Kraft the meaning of patriotism to, respectively, a Nazi, a Communist, and an American. "Hooray, hooray, hooray," I'd said.

She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.The fat woman’s expression implied that she would go crazy on the spot if anybody did any more thinking.

I don't think he was knowable. I mean, when most people talk about knowing somebody a lot or a little, they're talking about secrets they've been told or haven't been told. They're talking about intimate things, family things, love things ... Dr. Hoenikker had all those things in his life, the way every living person has to, but they weren't the main things with him. ... Dr. Breed keeps telling me the main thing with Dr. Hoenikker was truth. ... I just have trouble understanding how truth, all by itself, could be enough for a person.

Dr. Hoenikker used to say that any scientist who couldn't explain to an eight-year-old what he was doing was a charlatan.

We Bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass by Bokonon ... "If you find your life tangled up with somebody else's life for no very logical reasons," writes Bokonon, "that person may be a member of your karass." At another point in The Books of Bokonon he tells us, "Man created the checkerboard; God created the karass." By that he means that a karass ignores national, institutional, occupational, familial, and class boundaries. It is as free form as an amoeba.

[It] was about the end of the world in the year 2000 ... It told how mad scientists made a terrific bomb that wiped out the whole world. There was a big sex orgy when everybody knew that the world was going to end, and then Jesus Christ Himself appeared ten seconds before the bomb went off.

"I had hoped, as a broadcaster, to be merely ludicrous, but this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought , so eager to believe and snarl and hate. So many people wanted to believe me!"

"What is the secret of life?" I asked."I forget," said Sandra."Protein," the bartender declared. "They found out something about protein.""Yeah," said Sandra, "that's it."

"Ah, God," says Bokonon, "what an ugly city every city is."

We Bokonists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass by Bokonon "If you find your life tangled up with somebody else's life for no very logical reasons," writes Bokonon, "that person may be a member of your karass." At another point in The Books of Bokonon he tells us, "Man created the checkerboard; God created the karass." By that he means that '''a karass ignores national, institutional, occupational, familial, and class boundaries. It is as free form as an amoeba.

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;

Man got to tell himself he understand.

Round and round and round we spin,

With feet of lead and wings of tin.