Kurt Vonnegut speaking to John Irving while Irving was administering the Heimlich maneuver in response to Vonnegut's uncontrollable coughing..."John,stop- I am not choking. I have emphysema.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

The things that had changed seem out of place, and the things that had remained the same made Charlie feel out of place.

Let your teaching reveal the nature of the kingdom of God

Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

I don't want to be throwing the football on the front yard when I'm 75. I mean, I'm not opposed to men doing that. But I don't think it's gonna work for me.

Hitters get paid a lot of money to hit. Let's face it, man, sometimes they just do.

The problem is that, over time, big pieces of business that have to get done without leadership from Washington, don't get done.

To a valet no man is a hero. [Ger., Es gibt fur den Kammerdiener keiner Helden.]

The eye is the best of artists.

It’s okay to wonder how you could try so hard and still get stomped all over. Just don’t let them change you.