Slaughterhouse Five

An American near Billy wailed that he had excreted everything but his brains. Moments later he said, There they go, there they go. He meant his brains. That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book. p. 125

— Slaughterhouse Five men

“I’m not the only one who’s listening. God is listening, too. And on Judgment Day he’s going to tell you all the things you said and did. If it turns out they’re bad things instead of good things, that’s too bad for you, because you’ll burn forever and ever. The burning never stops hurting.” Poor Maggie turned gray. She believed that, too, and was petrified. Kilgore Trout laughed uproariously. A salmon egg flew out of his mouth and landed in Maggie’s cleavage. p. 172

— Slaughterhouse Five god

This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace.Epigram

— Slaughterhouse Five peace

So it goes.Recurring statement throughout the novel, on life, death, and mortal existence, based on what Tralfamadorians say whenever someone or something dies.

— Slaughterhouse Five life

Recurring statement throughout the novel, on life, death, and mortal existence, based on what Tralfamadorians say whenever someone or something dies.

— Slaughterhouse Five life

The smell of mustard gas and roses.Repeated quote in various places in the novel to describe either a drunkards breath or the smell of rotting corpses.

— Slaughterhouse Five quote

Repeated quote in various places in the novel to describe either a drunkards breath or the smell of rotting corpses.

— Slaughterhouse Five quote

I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby, I said. The irony is so great. A whole city gets burned down, and thousands of people are killed. And then this one American foot soldier is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot. And hes given a regular trial, and then hes shot by a firing squad. pp. 4-5

— Slaughterhouse Five people

The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who’d really fought. p. 11

— Slaughterhouse Five war

The wife of an old war buddy accusing the author, who is writing a book about the destruction by bombing of Dresden, Germany in World War II pp. 14-15

— Slaughterhouse Five writing

I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep. p. 18

— Slaughterhouse Five self

It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be 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?Vonnegut, as narrator, addresses his publisher Seymour Sam Lawrence directly about his book p. 19

— Slaughterhouse Five book

Vonnegut, as narrator, addresses his publisher Seymour Sam Lawrence directly about his book p. 19

— Slaughterhouse Five book

I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that. p. 19

— Slaughterhouse Five art

And Lots wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes. pp. 21-22

— Slaughterhouse Five love

People arent supposed to look back. Im certainly not going to do it anymore. Ive finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt. It begins like this: Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. It ends like this: Poo-tee-weet? p. 22

— Slaughterhouse Five war

As part of the gun crew, he had helped to fire one shot in anger — from a 57-millimeter antitank gun. The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty. The gun lapped up snow and vegetation with a blowtorch thirty feet long. The flame left a black arrow on the ground, showing the Germans exactly where the gun was hidden. The shot was a miss. p. 34

— Slaughterhouse Five god

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. p. 39

— Slaughterhouse Five life

Billy had a framed prayer on his office wall which expressed his method for keeping going, even though he was unenthusiastic about living eat shit. A lot of patients who saw the prayer on Billys wall told him that it helped them to keep going, too. It went like this: God 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. Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future. p. 60

— Slaughterhouse Five wisdom

Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: Why me? That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber? Yes. Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it. Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why. pp. 76-77

— Slaughterhouse Five art

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as Ive said before, bugs in amber. p. 86

— Slaughterhouse Five war

If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings, said the Tralfamadorian, I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by free will. Ive visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will. p. 86

— Slaughterhouse Five time

There isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. 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 marvelous moments seen all at one time.A Tralfamadorian explains a Tralfamadorian novel to Billy p. 88

— Slaughterhouse Five love

The British had no way of knowing it, but the candles and the soap were made from the fat of rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the State. p. 96

— Slaughterhouse Five enemies

She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone through so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didnt really like life at all. p. 102

— Slaughterhouse Five life

You know — weve had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock. My God, my God —I said to myself, Its the Childrens Crusade. p. 106

— Slaughterhouse Five god

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue, the monograph went on. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times. p. 129

— Slaughterhouse Five truth

Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer. p. 167

— Slaughterhouse Five money

You ever put a full-length mirror on the floor, and then have a dog stand on it? Trout asked Billy. No. The dog will look down, and all of a sudden hell realize theres nothing under him. He thinks hes standing on thin air. Hell jump a mile. p. 175

— Slaughterhouse Five hell

Billy turned on his television set, clicking its channel selector around and around. He was looking for programs on which he might be allowed to appear. But it was too early in the evening for programs that allowed people with peculiar opinions to speak out. It was only a little after eight o’clock, so all the shows were about silliness or murder. So it goes. pp. 199-200

— Slaughterhouse Five people

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