If you can’t write clearly, you probably don’t think nearly as well as you think you do.
~ Kurt Vonnegut
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If you can’t write clearly →
Vonnegut in rare form →
When I taught in Iowa, University of Iowa, I had a writers workshop… Is I’d tell my students to go to the public library there in Iowa City and take out a novel that hadn’t been taken out for twenty years… And geezers they found some knockouts. It doesn’t surprise me at all.
~ Kurt Vonnegut from, Kurt Vonnegut Live in Second Life on NPR’s “The Infinite Mind.” – YouTube
…and when I say “in rare form,” I mean that literally. This is a YouTube video, of a live interview in Second Life on NPR’s “The Infinite Mind.” The video is of two avatars, (in front of a live audience of avatars,) having a virtual, live interview… and it’s all Vonnegut gold.
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Create something →
If you want to really hurt you parents … the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
~ Kurt Vonnegut
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Notice when you are happy →
And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut
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Be soft! →
Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe the world to be a beautiful place.
~ Kurt Vonnegut
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