Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

In 1967, I signed up for the Army, where I earned an equivalency diploma, then went on to join the Special Forces. That was really was the turning point in my life. I became more disciplined and focused. I went overseas and was in combat, got wounded a couple of times, lost a lot of good friends but matured a great deal.

There aren't a lot of opportunities for that rite of passage that makes you a man. War is one of them, and violent sports are another.

Wounds are an essential part of life, and until you are wounded in some way, you cannot become a man.

I felt that that experience, because of the responsible nature that I found I acted all during that traumatic time, that I felt that I was a man.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.

'Fringe' was the first time I realized that I could ever man up in a character and make this transition from being a boy or a young man into actually being a man.

No one hates war like a soldier hates war.

Those first few years of marriage, before the war interrupted all our lives, Phil and I had a very happy time. I grew up considerably, mostly thanks to him.

It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys.

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows.

War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood.

The problem for me, still today, is that I write purely with one dramatic structure and that is the rite of passage. I'm not really skilled in any other. Rock and roll itself can be described as music to accompany the rite of passage.

War, I have always said, forces men to change their standards, regardless of whether their country has won or lost.

War is a perversion of sex.

As one who participated in all the wars of the state of Israel, I saw the horror of wars. I saw the fear of wars. I saw my best friends being killed in battles. I was seriously injured twice.

If there was no war, the young men felt that they were denied manhood.

Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?

In our culture, I think that there is no markers anymore. Young men don't really have something that says you're a grown up now, until you have a baby.

It was a great experience for me - the ups and downs - because I became a man in Philadelphia.

You don't become a real man until you're 35 or 40.

There's nothing glorious about combat. I've been there and done that.

As part of the ritual of becoming a man, my maternal uncle, a judge, and his four sons, each older than me, took me deer hunting.

The things that have happened for me, to me, have helped me grow up. Especially the passing of my father. That was something that took me to another level of growing and maturing. That's whan I started to be more of a man.

I didn't see conflict during the Vietnam War, but I did lose close friends.

I used to say that I got to Germany as a boy but I left as a man.