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A review by ella_holden_
Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
p. 3 ‘i have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone’
p. 5 ‘the smell of mustard gas and roses’
p. 11 ‘you’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs’.
p. 14 ‘there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to e dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?’’
p. 15 ‘as an Earthling, I had to believe whatever clocks said’. ‘I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what i cannot fear. I learn by going where i have to go’
p. 16 ‘she did look back, and i love her for that, because it was so human’. ‘This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt’
p. 17 ‘Billy Pilgram has come unstuck in time’. ‘He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next’
p. 19 ‘when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist’. ‘It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever. When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment. but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments’.
p. 20 ‘so it goes’
p. 23 ‘the theoretical corpses laughed and ate a hearty noontime meal’
p. 24 ‘he looked like a filthy flamingo’
p. 31 ‘his attention began to swing grandly through the full arc of his life, passing into death, which was violet light’
p. 32 ‘how did i get so old?’
p. 34 ‘he was in the back seat of his car, which was why he couldn’t find the steering wheel’
p. 36 ‘his voice was a gorgeous instrument’
p. 37 ‘curiosity as to why one american would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the victim should laugh’
p. 39 ‘the boy was as beautiful as eve’. ‘Now they were dying in the snow, feeling nothing, turning the snow to the colour of raspberry sherbet’
p. 43 ‘the people who lived here hated it so much that they had burned down a lot of it a month before. It was all they had, and they’d wrecked it.’
p. 44 ‘he was unenthusiastic about living’. ‘grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, courage to change the things i can, and wisdom always to tell the difference’
p. 45 ‘convulsions made the man dance flappingly all the time’
p. 47 ‘One of them singled out Billy’s face for a moment, then focused at infinity again. There was a tiny plume of smoke at infinity. There was a battle there. People were dying there. So it goes.’
p. 51 ‘when food came in, the human beings were quiet and trusting and beautiful. They shared’. ‘The queer earth was a mosaic of sleepers who nestled like spoons’
p. 52 ‘he felt spooky and luminous, felt as though he were wrapped in a cool fur that was full of static electricity’
p. 54 ‘his blue and ivory feet crushing the wet salad of the lawn’
p. 55 ‘That is a very Earthling question to ask… Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?
Yes
Well, here we are… trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why’
p. 59 ‘the man was all alone in the night’
p. 61 ‘trapped in another blob of amber’
p. 62 ‘i’ve visited 31 inhabited planets in the universe, and i have studied reports on 100 more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will’
p. 63 ‘the creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti.’
p. 64 ‘there is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvellous moments seen all at one time’
p. 66 ‘everybody was legally alive now’
p. 70 ‘this isn’t a man. it’s a broken kite’
p. 74 ‘she upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she has gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn’t really like life at all’.
p. 75 ‘that duet between the dumb, praying lady and the big, hollow man who was so full of loving echoes’
p. 76 ‘we’ve had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by ageing men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were caught by babies’
p. 84 ‘he had always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way’
p. 85 ‘On other days we have wars as horrible as any you’ve ever seen or read about. There isn’t anything we can do about them, so we simply don’t look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments… ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones’
p. 87 ‘two beautiful people, a young man and a young woman in evening clothes, were at the rail in the stern, loving each other and their dreams and the wake’
p. 88 ‘everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt’
p. 5 ‘the smell of mustard gas and roses’
p. 11 ‘you’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs’.
p. 14 ‘there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to e dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?’’
p. 15 ‘as an Earthling, I had to believe whatever clocks said’. ‘I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what i cannot fear. I learn by going where i have to go’
p. 16 ‘she did look back, and i love her for that, because it was so human’. ‘This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt’
p. 17 ‘Billy Pilgram has come unstuck in time’. ‘He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next’
p. 19 ‘when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist’. ‘It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever. When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment. but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments’.
p. 20 ‘so it goes’
p. 23 ‘the theoretical corpses laughed and ate a hearty noontime meal’
p. 24 ‘he looked like a filthy flamingo’
p. 31 ‘his attention began to swing grandly through the full arc of his life, passing into death, which was violet light’
p. 32 ‘how did i get so old?’
p. 34 ‘he was in the back seat of his car, which was why he couldn’t find the steering wheel’
p. 36 ‘his voice was a gorgeous instrument’
p. 37 ‘curiosity as to why one american would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the victim should laugh’
p. 39 ‘the boy was as beautiful as eve’. ‘Now they were dying in the snow, feeling nothing, turning the snow to the colour of raspberry sherbet’
p. 43 ‘the people who lived here hated it so much that they had burned down a lot of it a month before. It was all they had, and they’d wrecked it.’
p. 44 ‘he was unenthusiastic about living’. ‘grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, courage to change the things i can, and wisdom always to tell the difference’
p. 45 ‘convulsions made the man dance flappingly all the time’
p. 47 ‘One of them singled out Billy’s face for a moment, then focused at infinity again. There was a tiny plume of smoke at infinity. There was a battle there. People were dying there. So it goes.’
p. 51 ‘when food came in, the human beings were quiet and trusting and beautiful. They shared’. ‘The queer earth was a mosaic of sleepers who nestled like spoons’
p. 52 ‘he felt spooky and luminous, felt as though he were wrapped in a cool fur that was full of static electricity’
p. 54 ‘his blue and ivory feet crushing the wet salad of the lawn’
p. 55 ‘That is a very Earthling question to ask… Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?
Yes
Well, here we are… trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why’
p. 59 ‘the man was all alone in the night’
p. 61 ‘trapped in another blob of amber’
p. 62 ‘i’ve visited 31 inhabited planets in the universe, and i have studied reports on 100 more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will’
p. 63 ‘the creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti.’
p. 64 ‘there is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvellous moments seen all at one time’
p. 66 ‘everybody was legally alive now’
p. 70 ‘this isn’t a man. it’s a broken kite’
p. 74 ‘she upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she has gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn’t really like life at all’.
p. 75 ‘that duet between the dumb, praying lady and the big, hollow man who was so full of loving echoes’
p. 76 ‘we’ve had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by ageing men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were caught by babies’
p. 84 ‘he had always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way’
p. 85 ‘On other days we have wars as horrible as any you’ve ever seen or read about. There isn’t anything we can do about them, so we simply don’t look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments… ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones’
p. 87 ‘two beautiful people, a young man and a young woman in evening clothes, were at the rail in the stern, loving each other and their dreams and the wake’
p. 88 ‘everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt’