Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

If I write a new play, my point of view may be profoundly modified. I may be obliged to contradict myself and I may no longer know whether I still think what I think.

Life isn't a science. We make it up as we go.

I don't know why I write what I write.

The problem as you get older... is that you become more self-aware. At the same time, you have to surprise yourself. There's no way of arranging the surprise, so it is tricky.

Sure, I got lost, which is an actor's worst nightmare. But it is a gift as well, because great things come out of being lost and unsure, especially if you have a controlling side or a perfectionist side, which plenty of us do.

Each time I write, each time the authentic words break through, I am changed. The older order that I was collapses and dies. I lose control. I do not know exactly what words will appear on the page. I follow language. I follow the sound of the words, and I am surprised and transformed by what I record.

A lot of actors lack confidence - even if you're doing really well, you kind of feel like this might be your last job. I enjoy the feeling of, "Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew," and then working really, really hard and thinking, "Wow, I like that. I did that." Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who jumps out of planes and enjoys bungee jumping or anything like that, but I definitely enjoy living quite spontaneously and going with the wind.

I like to wake up each morning and not know what I think, that I may reinvent myself in some way.

Perhaps I wasn't going crazy after all. Perhaps I was just becoming a writer.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

I've always had real trouble knowing what my actual desires and goals are. I've just been dragged along by fate.

As far as writing, it's grown because I've really grown comfortable with who I am.

I decided at 40 I was wasting entire chunks of my brain and didn't want to blow my one chance on Earth. I'm glad I made that decision. Writing is largely about time, while visual art is largely about space. Sometimes, as with film, you can hybridize, but I think it's basically the space part of my brain wanting equal footing with the time part.

Some people say, 'Write what you know.' My thing is, 'Write what scares you.'

I want to get within myself and write. I really, really want to write.

I write to express my thoughts, my feelings. I want people to think.

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

Somebody talked me into writing an autobiography about six or seven years ago. And I said I'd try. We talked into a tape recorder, and after a couple of months, I said, To hell with it. I was so depressed. It was like saying, 'This is the end.' I was more interested in what the hell was coming the next day or the next week.

I've been doing some writing, which I find very cathartic and fun.

I assume as a writer that most of the time I'm going to fall down and fail.

I hate to look at the stuff I've written and consider what it means or why I do it.

I don't set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

If I'm doing something I know I can pull off, then that's not the book I should be writing.

I don't have any regrets, because I think life is like a creek. It kind of meanders along, and you instinctively do the things you are meant to do. There's no great plan except doing really good scripts, meeting great filmmakers. And I have to have something that I can bring to the role.

People would say to me, 'Who do you want to be as an artist?' And I would just look at them because I didn't know.