Saturday, November 21, 2015

Be Kind

I'm thinking about reading all of Kurt Vonneguts books again, in the order in which they were written. He was one of my favorite writers when I was a teenager and his books meant a lot to me. The first book I read of his was "Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death".  

Lately though I can't stop thinking about the baptismal speech from "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:  "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

 I  sort of want to get a tattoo of that but its pretty long so maybe I'll just get one that says "be kind." Words to live by.

2 comments:

  1. I reread "Breakfast of Champions" the summer of 2014. I hadn't read it since teenagehood and it was astounding how much of his world view resonated with me. Kind is good. Be kind, especially to ourselves.

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  2. As a teenager my life was changed at the moment I read "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." from Slaughterhouse Five.

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