Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

I often think I am a better person because I lived for many years of my life with a flashlight. I have developed skills I did not think were possible - bathing with a cup of water by candlelight, for instance, and writing a story with a headlamp on.

Survival requires us to leave our prejudices at home. It's about doing whatever it takes - and ultimately those with the biggest heart will win.

But I love the idea - whether it's in my work or where I live - exploring new frontier, and I like putting myself in strange places and trying to survive and figure things out and gather up an infrastructure. I like knowing that I could figure out a way to live anywhere.

I can take hardship. I can sleep on the cold floor anytime. I can also sleep on a feather bed.

I'll dispose of my teeth as I see fit, and after they've gone, I'll get along. I started off living on gruel, and by God, I can always go back to it again.

Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge number of people who are not going to know what to do. But within every dystopia there's a little utopia.

Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.

I can't remember exactly the first thing I wrote, but one of the stories, was about a pilot whose plane crashed on a desert island, and the only other life on the island was a brown cow with yellow spots. The cow had... to survive, had taught itself to eat and get nutriments from sand. I guess, I've always been interested in adaptability and taking whatever life hands you and running with it.

I sleep equally well in a soft bed or on the grass beside the road. If I am given food and shelter, fine. If not, I'm just as happy. Many times I am given shelter by total strangers. When hospitality is not available there are always bus depots, railroad stations and all night truck stops.... When no shelter is available to me, I sleep in the fields or by the side of the road with God to guard me.

I remember once in junior high school, on a Friday, my mom came home from work and said to my brother and I, 'You know, between us, we have only 27 cents, but we have food in the refrigerator, we have our little garden out back, and we're happy, so we are rich.'

I've worked as a labourer, driven taxis and school buses, and been a car mechanic - whatever I could do just to get by. But it does mean that I know a little bit about a lot of things.

When I first came out, I was a film student, and my mom sewed clothes. I was already doing a million things then, whatever it took to survive. If I had to braid someone's hair to get one pound for my lunch money, that's what I did.

My childhood was bittersweet in many ways. We moved around a lot. By the time I was 10, I had travelled thousands of miles, often on my own. My parents were like my friends, so it felt like I didn't really have parents at all. But in a crazy way that was very liberating. It forced me to be independent, maybe a leader, and certainly a survivor.

The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.

Home has always been wherever I am. I'm not very attached to walls - or people, for that matter - so I've always loved travelling around. A book in my back pocket, a diary, and a pen is all I need to call any place home.

You win any which way you can. You do what you have to do to get by. That's the way it works in any job.

There has been a lot of movement in my family, but in a way, it has been great. It has made me adaptable. I can plonk myself anywhere.

I grew up learning to do more with less.

I think it is just a function of the fact that I moved around so much as a child that I learnt early on to make every place my home.

In my life I have always found ways of dealing with a situation.

But I've had to act and not depend on my voice so much.

Coming from a big family, I learned a lot. Things don't have to be perfect. You can do okay with 'almost.'

Place means nothing to me. I can be at home anywhere.

Adaptability is key.

I do have a side of me that would just love to be stuck in the woods and have to stick it out and be really resourceful.