Slaughterhouse-Five Quotes

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.

I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

All this happened, more or less.

- 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.- Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.

There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.

All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.

The nicest veterans...the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.

That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.

Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.

She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies.

People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.

It is just an illusion here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.

I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living.

If I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.

There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.

Everything is nothing, with a twist.

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.

There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.

It was very exciting for her, taking his dignity away in the name of love.

When everything was beautiful and nothing hurt...

But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes. People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.

I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is.

Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.

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.

No art is possible without a dance with death, he wrote.

Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is.

How’s the patient? asked Derby.Dead to the world.But not actually dead.No.How nice - to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

The champagne was dead. So it goes.

She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies. Men looked at her and wanted to fill her up with babies right away.

...when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.

Goodness me, the clock has struck-Alackday, and fuck my luck.

If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still--if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.

You know — we've had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock. "'My God, my God — ' I said to myself, 'It's the Children's Crusade.

He ate a pear. It was a hard one. It fought back against his grinding teeth. It snapped in juicy protest.

One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.

He did not think of himself as a writer for the simple reason that the world had never allowed him to think of himself in this way.

How nice—to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.

We went to the New York World's Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors. And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks, and not only the electronic clocks but the wind-up kind too. The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again.There was nothing I could do about it. As an Earthling I had to believe whatever clocks said -and calendars.

What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.

He had supposed for years that he had no secrets from himself. Here was proof that he had a great big secret somewhere inside, and he could not imagine what it was.

The book was Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension, by Kilgore Trout. It was about people whose mental diseases couldn't be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn't see those causes at all, or even imagine them.

People would be surprised if they knew how much in this world was due to prayers.

Billy heard Rosewater say to a psychiatrist, "I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living.

It is time for me to be dead for a little while - and then live again.