This person has just arrived on this planet, knows nothing about it, has no standards by which to judge it. This person does not care what it becomes. It is eager to become absolutely anything it is supposed to be.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the idea of inherent potential and the openness to possibilities in life.
Kurt Vonnegut highlights the essence of newness and potential in every individual who comes into the world, suggesting that we are born without preconceived notions or judgments. This unformed state allows for a vast array of possibilities, as we are free to evolve into whatever we are meant to be, unencumbered by societal expectations or standards.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire students about embracing their futures.
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.
Placerea este testul naturii, semnul ei aprobator.
Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.
I'm in favor of animal liberation. Why? Because I'm an animal.
In truth, we have delayed to pass sentence on the person of our lord the king, waiting, if perhaps he may, by God's grace, repent; but we will pass it ere long unless he does repent.
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
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