Mark Vonnegut Quotes

A war still rages over the legacy of the 1960s.

I was not able to stop or slow down the Vietnam War.

In retrospect, the political and cultural climate in the early '60s seems both a time of innocence and also like a sultry, still summer day in the Midwest: an unsettling calm before a ferocious storm over Vietnam, which was not yet an American war.

I think people would be up in arms. I think we would most likely have a similar situation to what happened in the 60s. I don't know if it would be as violent, I think it would be difficult to say that. But I think that, from what I can understand, our nation as a whole is largely against the war as it stands.

I felt just overwhelmed by input: the Vietnam war and the collapse of the '60s and the proliferation of media' it just felt like everything was too much to handle and you just tuned out.

My opposition to the Vietnam War. I was the first Hollywood actor to speak out against it.

Vietnam was the defining event for my generation. It spilled over into all facets of American life - into music, into the pulpits, in churches of our country. It spilled over into the city streets, police forces. And even if you were born late in the generation, Vietnam was still part of your childhood.

Senator Albert Gore Sr. was one of the first outspoken critics of the Vietnam War.

My parents demonstrated against the Vietnam war, they were into the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, they started the first vegetarian restaurant in Pittsburgh.

I got interested in politics during the civil rights movement and then Vietnam.

There is certainly greatness in the '60s generation. They changed our attitudes about race in America, which was long overdue. They didn't just stand up and salute when told to go to war. Women finally began to realize a more equal place in our society.

In the '60s we fought for peace, when the Vietnam war was on. We were against the cops and against the politicians, and there was a lot of waving banners and all that. And I think in a way, just as they were enjoying that machoism of war, we were enjoying the machismo of being anti-war, you know?

The Vietnam War and the Iraq war, in different ways, both made me feel like I could not not address them. I'm very doubtful about the usefulness of poetry to do that.

Disruption of the New Left

Most of my stuff was sort of of-the-time. 'The Crazies' was, basically, we were angry about Vietnam, and it had a reason for being.

I remember the youth movement in 1968. It started on American university campuses as a protest against the Vietnam war, then came to Paris, Frankfurt and Berlin. Within a year, you had an uprising of youth against their elders.

The uproar of the late '60s - the antiwar movement, black riots, angry women. It was a wonderful time.

I remember being in Washington for high school when the city was on fire and those were troubling times, the Vietnam War, the protests.

Many things happened in the sixties, but the period is no more significant, better, or more 'political' than today. It's time to turn the page.

For me to speak out against the war in Iraq, you know - most of my fans are lefties anyway, so I don't really get much flack for it.

I fought for peace in the fifties.

I think my father had a lot of anti-establishment in him. He came through the '60s.

It is unconscionable that 10,000 boys have died in Vietnam. If 10,000 American women had mind enough they could end the war, if they were committed to the task, even if it meant going to jail.

First of all, anybody who has lasted 30 and went through the 60's is really a survivor.

Don't underlook the Sixties; we started eating more vegetables, respecting women, and we shut down Vietnam. We did a lot of good stuff. But it shouldn't shut you down from the moment.