Gymno

succumbing to peer pressure

Monday, April 23, 2007

13. "So it goes."

Unlike many of these quotes, the repeated refrain from Vonnegut's classic Slaughterhouse-Five isn't notable for its unique wording so much as for how much emotion—and dismissal of emotion—it packs into three simple, world-weary words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything. There's a reason this quote graced practically every elegy written for Vonnegut over the past two weeks (yes, including ours): It neatly encompasses a whole way of life. More crudely put: "Shit happens, and it's awful, but it's also okay. We deal with it because we have to."



It's been a shitty past few days, and these Vonnegut quotes hit the spot. I'd also like to add:


I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please--a little less love, and a little more common decency.'"
Amen.


1 Comments:

Blogger Sid said...

That's my all time favorite Vonnegut quote, straight out of Slapstick, my all time favorite Vonnegut book.

I nearly cried when I heard he died. I didn't even cry when my own grandmother died. It just fucked with my head an awful lot to think he'd actually just -stopped- being.

Sid

1:36 PM  

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