Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a regretful acknowledgment of the environmental damage caused by past generations' reliance on fossil fuels.
In this quote, Kurt Vonnegut addresses future generations with a heartfelt apology for the negligence of the past, particularly in their reckless consumption of petroleum. It serves as a poignant reminder of humanity's short-sightedness regarding environmental sustainability, illustrating how the dependency on fossil fuels has led to significant ecological consequences that will affect future inhabitants of the planet.
In practice
In a speech about climate change, I might say, 'As Kurt Vonnegut poignantly wrote, 'Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.'
But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.
I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment following some bewildering experiences as an infantryman and later as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. The science of the Study of Man has been extremely satisfactory from that personal standpoint.
How subservient to Jesus, or to a humane God Almighty, were the leaders of this country back in the 1840's, when Marx said such a supposedly evil thing about religion? They had made it perfectly legal to own human slaves, and weren't going to led women vote or hold public office, God forbid, for another eighty year.
All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States - and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!
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."
If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still--if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.
Women's director! Well, I'm very pleased to be considered a master of anything, but remember, for every Jill there was a Jack. People like to pigeonhole you - it's a shortcut, I guess, but once they do, you're stuck with it.
Thereβs nothing wrong with not looking like something. It just means you donβt fit the stereotype yet.
But, all this while, I was giving myself very unnecessary alarm. Providence had mediated better things for me than I could possibly imagine for myself.
There's sadness to anyone that dies before their time, and specifically ones that seem to affect people in a positive way. It doesn't matter if it's Whitney Houston or a nameless, faceless person on the street. That's just as big of a tragedy for me.
Non-violence is the article of faith.
Without desire there is stillness, and the world settles by itself.
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