Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes.
Interpretation
This quote humorously suggests considering the consequences of our actions, especially when dealing with powerful individuals.
Kurt Vonnegut's quote satirically highlights the notion of making careful choices before taking drastic actions. It underscores the importance of understanding one's relationships and the influence of social connections, implying that the repercussions of actions can vary greatly depending on the status of individuals involved. The phrase 'So it goes' reflects Vonnegut's signature acceptance of life's unpredictability and absurdity.
In practice
During a discussion on workplace politics, one might reference this quote to emphasize caution in dealing with influential colleagues.
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.
I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.
If you're politically correct, chances are you're not coming to one of my shows. I get to go onstage and say things that everybody thinks all the time, but can't say out loud.
Dieting makes me want to murder everyone around me.
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
Isnβt it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?
A tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I'll take A Midsummer Night's Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh.
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