Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

But I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got here. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these games going on that could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the crazymaking games going on today are love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf, and girls' basketball.

MAN: Kick him-he'll forgive you. Flatter him-he may or may not see through you. But ignore him and he'll hate you

As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.

People fascinate the hell out of me. I never get tired of watching people, listening to people. The best part is not getting up in front of people but meeting people.

We trifle with, make sport of, and despise those who are attached to us, and follow those that fly from us.

After he has had his tantrum, the neurotic expects those around him to feel friendly and relaxed; after all, he does.

Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.

How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it is liking one felt, or disliking?

Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.

There is a pleasure in meeting the glance of a person whom we have lately laid under some obligations.

To our human minds, computers behave less like rocks and trees than they do like humans, so we unconsciously treat them like people.... In other words, humans have special instincts that tell them how to behave around other sentient beings, and as soon as any object exhibits sufficient cognitive function, those instincts kick in and we react as though we were interacting with another sentient human being.

Do people always act this way around you? (Kiara) You should have seen the reactions when I wore a League uniform. Those were actually comical. Except for the ones who lost control of their bowels. Then it was just messy. (Nykyrian)

You can be totally rational with a machine. But if you work with people, sometimes logic often has to take a backseat to understanding.

It is in our collective behavior that we are most mysterious.

History is nothing but a problem of mechanics applied to psychology.

I don't know how people act. I've never understood that.

What people think, believe, and feel affects how they behave. The natural and extrinsic effects of their actions, in turn, partly determine their thought patterns and affective reactions.

It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.

Look closely at those who patronize you. Half are unfeeling, half untaught.

The wettest, weirdest environment is human interaction. Whatever we build gets misunderstood, corroded and chronic, and it happens quickly and in unpredictable ways. That's one reason why the web is so fascinating-it's a collision between the analytic world of code and wet world of people.

All that land is filled with people, every one of them different, and the things they do to each other matter.

you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry

Aggression, like every other part of human behavior we take for granted, is a challenging engineering problem!

At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity, and so on.

People tolerate those they fear further than those they love.