Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.

He knows that after him everything will continue on much as before, except that there will be a minuscule absence, a barely detective gap in the so-called grand scheme, one unit fewer now. Or not even that, not even an empty space where he once was, for all will rush immediately to fill that vacuum. Pft. Gone. Recollections of him will remain in the minds of others for a while, but presently those others too will die and his few relics with them. And then all will be dark.

I realized people would soon forget me once I was dead. I couldn't even say that this was hard to stomach; really, there's no idea to which one doesn't get acclimatized in time.

Jump to the day we'll all be dead and none of this will matter. Jump to the day another house will stand here and the people living there won't know we ever happened.

Oh my God, if I know anything, I know I'm gonna die! I never forget that. I know I'll be forgotten in a minute, and that's just fine with me.

When I die, and people realize that I will not be resurrected in three days, they will forget me. That is the way it should be.

We all go to our grave thinking that we will never be forgotten, and we are forgotten ten minutes later.

Death is the stone into which our oblivion hardens.

He is dead who called me into being, and when I shall be no more the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.

They would grow old. They would forget me.

Life is a memory, and then it is nothing.

There is no remembrance which time does not obliterate, nor pain which death does not terminate.

Here I am...wanting to accomplish something and completely forgetting it must all end--that there is such a thing as death.

Oblivion is not to be hired.

Even the one moment that you thought was your eternity fades out and is forgotten and dies.

Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie, Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and-sans End!

I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust

Who could look on these monuments without reflecting on the vanity of mortals in thus offering up testimonials of their respect for persons of whose very names posterity is ignorant?

To be forgotten, is to die a little.

As Beckett said, it's not enough to die, one has to be forgotten as well.

All things are only transitory.

Beauty is a precious trace that eternity causes to appear to us and that it takes away from us. A manifestation of eternity, and a sign of death as well.

Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it's like they didn't fade away at all.

People say you never remember anybody who dies in movies, and it's true, you don't. You don't even remember people who disappear.