I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to become a professional writer. I say to you, "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the struggles and societal perceptions of pursuing a career in the arts.
Kurt Vonnegut's quote humorously expresses the challenges faced by aspiring writers and artists, suggesting that choosing the arts can be a way to rebel against traditional expectations. He critiques the use of semicolons as a literary device that serves little purpose beyond showcasing education, emphasizing that true expression in art often bypasses conventional norms.
In practice
During a writing workshop, referencing Vonnegut can lighten the mood while discussing the pressures of artistic career choices.
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.
When the bright angel dominates, out comes a great work of art, a Michelangelo David or a Beethoven symphony.
Photography has always been a major part of my vision: my excuse for meddling with what the world looks like.
And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, and silently steal away.
A thimbleful of red is redder than a bucketful.
In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live.
The most extraordinary discoveries are made when the artist is overwhelmed by what he has to say.
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