And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And Castle nodded sagely. 'So this is a picture of the meaninglessness of it all! I couldn't agree

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And God created every living creature that now move, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. “What is the purpose of all this?” he asked politely.”Everything must have a purpose?” asked God.”Certainly,” said man.”Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,” said God. And He went away.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: "Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity. "The ideas Earthlings held didn't matter for hundreds of thousands of years, since they couldn't do much about them anyway. Ideas might as well be badges as anything." They even had a saying about the futility of ideas: 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.' "And then Earthlings discovered tools. Suddenly agreeing with friends could be a form of suicide or worse. But agreements went on, not for the sake of common sense or decency or self-preservation, but for friendliness." Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead. And even when they built computers to do some thinking for them, they designed them not so much for wisdom as for friendliness. So they were doomed. Homicidal beggars could ride.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And how should we behave during this Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don't already have one.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And I am now compelled to wonder if wisdom has ever existed or can ever exist. Might wisdom be as impossible in this particular universe as a perpetual-motion machine?

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And I apologize to all of you who are the same age as my grandchildren. And many of you reading this are the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And, if you'll investigate the history of science, my dear boy, I think you'll find that most of the huge ideas have come from intelligent playfulness. All the sober, thin-lipped concentration is really just a matter of tidying up around the fringes of the big ideas.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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 Jr.