15 Kurt Vonnegut Quotes About Writers and Writing

[Michie]

As affable and loquacious as he was, Kurt Vonnegut disliked interviews. In Palm Sunday, he mentions his distaste for the process itself, of being subjected to an interviewer's desperate attempts at carving open his brain in order to mine it for ideas.

Considering his objections, we are rather lucky that Kurt Vonnegut still went under the interviewer's knife from time to time, for few people have ever had as many interesting things to say as he did. His insights into writing were especially valuable, sage, and practical. Here are 15 funny and wise examples.


1. “I get up at 7:30 and work four hours a day. Nine to twelve in the morning, five to six in the evening. Businessmen would achieve better results if they studied human metabolism. No one works well eight hours a day. No one ought to work more than four hours.”

—To Robert Taylor. Boston Globe Magazine. July 20, 1969.

2. “When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away—even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaningless of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.”

—To the Paris Review. Spring 1977.

Continued below.
15 Kurt Vonnegut Quotes About Writers and Writing

 

[Norbert L]

Iirc he also mentioned that he could communicate in two languages. English and written English and that he was much better at the latter.

He made for an interesting read and reminds me of the type of phrases Gary Larson the cartoonist would place in his drawings. One cartoon had a bunch of dinosaurs smoking cigarettes with the caption, "why dinosaurs became extinct".