Ben > Ben's Quotes

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”
― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
― Albert Camus

“The more [science] discovers and the more comprehension it gives us of the mechanisms of existence, the more clearly does the mystery of existence itself stand out.”
― Aldous Huxley

“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Once upon a time on Tralfamadore there were creatures who weren’t anything like machines. They weren’t dependable. They weren’t efficient. They weren’t predictable. They weren’t durable. And these poor creatures were obsessed by the idea that everything that existed had to have a purpose, and that some purposes were higher than others. These creatures spent most of their time trying to find out what their purpose was. And every time they found out what seemed to be a purpose of themselves, the purpose seemed so low that the creatures were filled with disgust and shame. And, rather than serve such a low purpose, the creatures would make a machine to serve it. This left the creatures free to serve higher purposes. But whenever they found a higher purpose, the purpose still wasn’t high enough. So machines were made to serve higher purposes, too. And the machines did everything so expertly that they were finally given the job of finding out what the highest purpose of the creatures could be. The machines reported in all honesty that the creatures couldn’t really be said to have any purpose at all. The creatures thereupon began slaying each other, because they hated purposeless things above all else. And they discovered that they weren’t even very good at slaying. So they turned that job over to the machines, too. And the machines finished up the job in less time than it takes to say, “Tralfamadore.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“Just 'cause something makes you feel better than anything else, that don't mean it's good for you.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“And so it goes...”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country

“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.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“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.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“- 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.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five

“Science is magic that works.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“I've never been a coward at heart, although I've always been a coward in action”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
― George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden