Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

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 meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

Whatever a man wants badly and persistently enough will determine the man's character.

The keener the want the lustier the growth.

There's nothing bloody wrong with wanting it at all.

When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away.

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.

Out of need springs desire, and out of desire springs the energy and the will to win.

You know that gap between where you are and where you'd like to be? Within that gap, there is an ache and an aspirational leap, which is very good for writing.

Goals are essentially private things.

I cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire.

You can get it if you really want

It doesn't matter how much you want. What really matters is how much you want it.

It's not about 'what can I accomplish?' but 'what do I want to accomplish?' Paradigm shift.

How did I change my life? I wanted things. I wanted women and I wanted to write books.

[We need to push] for what we want, not just what we can get.

All I know is that the first step is to create a vision, because when you see the vision – the beautiful vision – that creates the want power.

We live by action—by acting on desire. Those of us who don't know how to want—whether geniuses or beggars—are related by impotence.

Don't go for what you know you can get. Go for what you really want.

Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point of all achievement. Just as the electron is the last unit of matter discernible to the scientist. DESIRE is the seed of all achievement; the starting place, back of which there is nothing, or at least there is nothing of which we have any knowledge.

You have to know what you want to get it.

When I'm writing a script, I don't worry about plot as much as I do about people. I get to know the main characters - what they need, what they want, what they should do. That's what gets the story going. You can't just have action, you've got to find out what the characters want. And then they must grow, they must go somewhere.

Want! You must want something. What do you want?

Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.

Know what you want - and get it

You can only write, 'Somebody wants something, something else is in their way of getting it.'