Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

I've been a teacher at the college level, in composition mostly, and I've been an editor on magazines.

The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that isn't funny on some level is quite hard.

I'm thinking my next book should be set on a tropical island, which will obviously require days, even weeks of meticulous research, but I'm prepared to make that sacrifice. That's just the sort of dedicated writer I am.

I love funny women. I love writing funny women characters.

I used to write a lot of songs. I was an English major in college. I was a deluded poet for a year. Totally deluded.

For example, many colleges in their writing programs teach some of my work.

I was a math whiz who stunk at English, so of course I wanted to be a writer more than anything in the world. I performed impromptu plays for my grandmother's sewing circle but forced my little sister to ask for ketchup at McDonald's.

My high-school papers, my college-application essays, read like Norman Mailer packed in a crunchy-peanut-butter sandwich.

I love to write. I love it. I mean there's nothin in the world I like better, and that includes sex, probably because I'm so very bad at it.

The formula for creative writing in high school or college is write what you know.

With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I have a great respect for the semicolin; it's a useful little chap

Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow" - I'm sorry, now, I wrote it! But I can tell you anyhow, I'll kill you if you quote it!

I fell into writing, I suppose, being one of those awful children who wrote verses. I went to a convent in New York-the Blessed Sacrament... I was fired from there, finally, for a lot of things, among them my insistence that the Immaculate Conception was spontaneous combustion.

Here is a les­son in writ­ing. First rule: Do not use semi­colons. They are trans­ves­tite her­maph­ro­dites rep­re­sent­ing absolutely noth­ing. All they do is show you've been to col­lege.

Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

I like high school and college writing textbooks and find them very helpful. Whenever I'm stuck and seem to have no ideas, I open one up and turn to the back. There I'll find questions like, "Have you had any experiences with an alcoholic or a sailor?"

Nothing flatters me more than to have it assumed that I could write prose, unless it be to have it assumed that I once pitched a baseball with distinction.

If this advertisement be not sufficient, I can only protrude my wormlike tendrils of apology, craving forbearance on the grounds that a writer must write about what he knows, and since I know nothing about any subject it scarcely matters where I dabble.

If letters had eyebrows, these would be arched.

Witty and mean is easy - but fond and funny is hard.

In school, writing was the only thing that really came naturally to me, but it wasn't until college that I realized that I could do it for more than just fun.

When I left home, my mum said "Don't forget to write", I thought, "That's unlikely"... It's a basic skill isn't it.

I don't know if I've ever written anything that's not a bill! I do write stories but I don't put a stamp on them. I wrote a story for my wife over Christmas and gave it to her as a present because she asked me to, but I don't put a stamp on things and send them to people.

I used to do a lot of story writing and storytelling coming up through grade school. By the time I got to college, I decided that I wanted to perform as well, and that's where I started.

One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it's kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling.