Slaughterhouse-Five Quotes

Quote 1: "Slaughterhouse-Five /or The Children's Crusade/ A Duty-Dance with Death/ by Kurt Vonnegut/ A Fourth-Generation German American/ Now Living in Easy Circumstances/ On Cape Cod/ [And Smoking Too Much]/ Who, As An American Infantry Scout/ Hors De Combat/ As A Prisoner Of War/ Witnessed The Fire-Bombing/ Of Dresden, Germany,/ "The Florence of the Elbe,"/ A Long Time Ago/ And Survived To Tell The Tale./ This Is A Novel/ Somewhat In The Telegraphic Schizophrenic/ Manner of Tales/ Of The Planet Tralfamadore,/ Where The Flying Saucers/ Come From./ Peace." Preface

Quote 2: "And even if the wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death." Chapter 1, pg. 4

Quote 3: "As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations, I had outlined the Dresden story many times." Chapter 1, pg. 5

Quote 4: "At that time, they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody. They may be teaching that still." Chapter 1, pg. 8

Quote 5: "The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought." Chapter 1, pg. 11

Quote 6: "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." Chapter 1, pg. 18

Quote 7: "He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next." Chapter 2, pg. 23

Quote 8: "All this responsibility at such an early age made her a bitchy flibbertigibbet." Chapter 2, pg. 29

Quote 9: "They crawled into a forest like the big, unlucky mammals they were." Chapter 2, pg. 29

Quote 10: "It is, in the imagination of combat's fans, the divinely listless loveplay that follows the orgasm of victory. It is called 'mopping up.'" Chapter 3, pg. 52

Quote 11: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to always tell the difference." Chapter 3, pg. 60

Quote 12: "The legs of those who stood were like fence posts driven into a warm, squirming, farting, sighing earth. The queer earth was a mosaic of sleepers who nestled like spoons." Chapter 3, pg. 70

Quote 13: "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." Chapter 4, pg. 86

Quote 14: "'My God--what have they done to you, lad? This isn't a man. It's a broken kite.'" -Englishman, Chapter 5, pg. 97

Quote 15: "So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe....Science fiction was a big help." Chapter 5, pg. 101

Quote 16: "And on and on it went that duet between the dumb, praying lady and the big, hollow man who was so full of loving echoes." Chapter 5, pg. 103

Quote 17: "The skyline was intricate and voluptuous and enchanted and absurd. It looked like a Sunday school picture of Heaven to Billy Pilgrim." Chapter 6, pg. 148

Quote 18: "In my prison cell I sit,/ With my britches full of shit,/ And my balls are bouncing gently on the floor./ And I see the bloody snag/ When she bit me in the bag./ Oh I'll never fuck a Polack any more." - Barbershop quartet, Chapter 7, pg. 155

Quote 19: "There are 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. But old Derby was a character now." Chapter 8, pg. 164

Quote 20: "Rumfoord was thinking in in military manner: that an inconvenient person, one whose death he wished for very much, for practical reasons, was suffering from a repulsive disease." Chapter 9, pg. 192

Quote 21: "The cattle are lowing,/ The Baby awakes./ But the little Lord Jesus/ No crying he makes." Chapter 9, pg. 197

Quote 22: "Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does." Chapter 9, pg. 198

Quote 23: "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." Chapter 10, pg. 211