"He was a graduate of West Point, a military academy which turned young men into homicidal maniacs for use in war."

Kurt Vonnegut Literature See all quotes by Kurt Vonnegut →

React to this quote

More by Kurt Vonnegut

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, we … dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class. Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything. Piece of cake.”

“Well, I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president.”

“I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That’s why we’ve got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.”

“The new heroism — put a village idiot into a pressure cooker, seal it up tight, and shoot him at the moon.”

“Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery.”

Resonant Thoughts

"It has been among the visions of some dreaming philosophers that human life is capable of almost indefinite extension. The great Condorcet was one of these. He thought that by the removal of the two c…"

— Robert Chambers (publisher

#Human Nature

"My hero is every American who says "My country needs me" and answers that call to fight. I had the good fortune and opportunity to come home and to tell the truth; many soldiers, like Pat Tillman... d…"

— Jessica Lynch

Military1983

#war

"It is only after prolonged, and often painful, self-examination that any of us can realise the extent to which our minds are in bondage to words, to phrases, to formulae. We are the children of an age…"

— L. P. Jacks

Philosophy1860–1955

#life

"I am the most miserable person who ever lived," he said... "You are young, and in love," said Primus. "Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived."

— Neil Gaiman

Literature1960–1996

#love