The Unbelievability of Life

This book is a collection of works that Vonnegut put together, most are speeches or essay that he wrote, a few are selections from other authors that are in some form related to him. It was interesting, although not as quick of a read as his fiction, and not quite as entertaining. Regardless Vonnegut still has some brilliant ideas.

Palm Sunday, by Vonnegut

"No offense intended, but it would never occur to me to look for the best minds in any generation in an undergraduate English department anywhere. I would certainly try the physics or the music department first--and after that biochemistry."

Haha, I agree. He also says something in the book about how he thinks the best writers are also not English majors, which I also would agree with. I think that in order to have something great to write about one should also have had experiences worth writing about. I'm not saying that all English majors don't, but it's less likely.

"We would have to understand from the first the scientific fact that any wound we inflict on the life-support systems of this planet is likely to be quite permanent. So anyone who wounded the planet, and then pretended to heal it, would simply be another hypocrite. He would remain quite permanently an evil and therefore disgusting human being."

Here, here. Although that would make pretty much everyone living in a developed country a hypocrite and disgusting. But at least it makes one think. And I would rather be a hypocrite than a person who continues to be unaware or uncaring about the environment.

"This is a matter of genetics, I think. People are born caring or not caring about managing money well.
We are all experiments in enthusiasms, narrow and preordained. I write."

I agree with this statement. I think I was born not caring about making money. However, there are enthusiasms that I do care about that require having money, and so I am not beginning to care about at least managing money fairly well, and finding something that I enjoy doing that will enable me to make money without having to care about making money.

In his play about the play Jekyll and Hyde, "This starts off a production number about how everybody loves monsters, but that not everybody is lucky enough to be a monster, that some people have to be good-looking and therefore hated by everyone, and so on."

A recurring theme.

About Celine, "He himself must have become thoroughly sick of his head occasionally, and I will guess as to its chief defect. I think it lacked the damping apparatus which most of us have, which keeps us from being swamped by the unbelievability of life as it really is."


"Vanity rather than wisdom determines how the world is run."

Vanity is another recurring theme, which I think has existed in every book I've read this summer.

On graphing the plot of Cinderella and the creation myth of the Old Testament. "And then I saw that the stroke of midnight looked exactly like the unique creation myth in the Old Testament. And then I saw that the rise to bliss at the end was identical with the expectation of redemption as expressed in primitive Christianity. The tales were identical."

Interesting. Although personally I think Belle from Beauty and the Beast is a much better heroine.

On his mentor, who asked "What is it an artist does--a painter, a writer, a sculptor--?"
... "His answer was this: "the artist says, 'I can do very little about the chaos around me, but at least I can reduce to perfect order this square of canvas, this piece of paper, this chunk of stone.'""