i am a man without a country

kurt vonnegut is my new hero. it's because he says things like this (from 'man without a country'):

if you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. i'm not kidding. the arts are not a way to make a living. they are a very human way of makign life more bearable. practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. sing in the shower. dance to the radio. tell stories. write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. do it as well as you possibly can. you will get an enormous reward. you will have created something.

electronic communities build nothing. you wind up with nothing. we are dancing animals. how beautiful is is to get up and go out and do something. we are here on earth to fart around. dont' let anybody tell you any different.

no matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless out government, our corporations, out media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful. if i should ever die, god forbid, let this be my epitaph:
the only proof he needed
for the existence of god
was music

in case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the nazis once were. and with good reason.

if there's anything they (people in power) hate, it's a wise human. so be one anyway. save our lives and your lives, too. be honerable.

doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? like great public schools, or health insurance for all?

joe, a young man from pittsbur, came up to me with one request: "please tell me it will all be okay."
"welcome to earth, young man," i said. "it's hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. it's round and wet and crowded. at the outside, joe, you've got about a hundred years here. there's only one rule that i know of: goddamn it, joe, you've got to be kind!"

what you respond to in any work of art is the artist's struggle against his or her own limitations

this is beginning to sound like one of those stupid emails that gets forwarded to a million people. but the book is super funny, and vonnegut is a very, very wise man. and that, in a nutshell, is why kurt vonnegut is my new hero.