Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

When you're in the battlefield, survival is all there is. Death is the only great emotion.

For me, at least, Vietnam was partly love. With each step, each light-year of a second, a foot soldier is always almost dead, or so it feels, and in such circumstances, you can't help but love.

The brave men who died in Vietnam, more than 100% of which were black, were the ultimate sacrifice.

I am the living death, a Memorial Day on wheels. I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy, your John Wayne come home, your Fourth of July firecracker exploding in the grave.

Surviving is the only glory in war.

The drummer in my first band was killed in Vietnam. He kind of signed up and joined the marines. Bart Hanes was his name. He was one of those guys that was jokin' all the time, always playin' the clown.

Arms once taken up should never be laid down, but upon one of three conditions—a safe peace, a complete victory, or an honorable death.

Doesn't it strike you as queer that I, who couldn't cut the head off a chicken, and who was sick at the sight of blood, should be cast into the middle of a great war, with blood flowing all about me.

There are only two ways to come back from the battlefield: With the head of an enemy or without your own.

It’s very hard really to look a soldier in the eye when you fear that you are sending him to his death.

My message was one of death for young men. How odd it is to applaud that.

I've walked on a lot of battlefields. Most of them are not haunted.

Sweet and glorious it is to die for our country.

my sweet old etcetera aunt lucy during the recent war could and what is more did tell you just what everybody was fighting for, my sister isabel created hundreds (and hundreds) of socks not to mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers etcetera wristers etcetera, my mother hoped that i would die etcetera bravely of course my father used to become hoarse talking about how it was a privilege and if only he could meanwhile my self etcetera lay quietly in the deep mud et cetera (dreaming, et cetera, of Your smile eyes knees and of your Etcetera)

Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

A martyr's just a casualty with really good PR.

History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union.

The war in vietnam threatened to tear our society apart, and the political and philosophical disagreements that separated each side continue, to some extent. It's been said that these memorials reflect a hunger for healing.

Terrible wars have been fought where millions have died for one idea - freedom. And it seems that something that means so much to so many people would be worth having.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg. And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years,and passengers ask the conductor- What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

Blood is the god of war's rich livery.

[...] to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity

Was there ever a war where only one side bled?

War is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in the world.

Certain blood will be given for half certain reasons, as in all wars.