Mark Vonnegut Quotes & Sayings

Having rationally decided to become less rational, we hoped to find new, meaningful, exciting, useful truths. Folk — Mark Vonnegut

A happy person with decent self-esteem wouldn't bother to have credentials as good as mine. — Mark Vonnegut

Once you've been talked to by voices, it's not possible to go back to a world where talking voices is not possible. — Mark Vonnegut

Knowing that you're crazy doesn't make the crazy things stop happening. — Mark Vonnegut

I'm not an expert on the Middle East or terrorism or the use of military force or politics. It's all I can do to know a little bit about how to help people raise their kids and what to do when they get sick. When a war happens, I just hope it gets over with quickly so that how we take care of children becomes more important again. — Mark Vonnegut

I'm subject to occasional theological nightmares. The one that leaves me in a cold sweat every time is, I arrive at the pearly gates and the first thing I'm asked is where I went to college. — Mark Vonnegut

Colds, ulcers, flu, and cancer are things we get. Schizophrenia is something we are. — Mark Vonnegut

Writing is very hard mostly because until you try to write something down, it's easy to fool yourself into believing you understand things. Writing is terrible for vanity and self-delusion. — Mark Vonnegut

Introverts almost never cause me trouble and are usually much better at what they do than extroverts. Extroverts are too busy slapping one another on the back, team building, and making fun of introverts to get much done. Extroverts are amazed and baffled by how much some introverts get done and assume that they, the extroverts, are somehow responsible. — Mark Vonnegut

Art is lunging forward without certainty about where you are going or how to get there, being open to and dependent on what luck, the paint, the typo, the dissonance, give you. Without art you're stuck with yourself as you are and life as you think life is. — Mark Vonnegut

Beyond a certain point, gathering further evidence of the hurtfulness and shortcomings of one's family, employer, et cetera is like eating the same poisonous mushroom over and over and expecting that sooner or later it will be nutritious. — Mark Vonnegut

And if you're lucky enough to survive going crazy and get back to the point where you can pass for normal, it builds a question into the rest of your life. You have to forgive people for wondering, 'How all right can he be?' — Mark Vonnegut

I was back to being polite, the well-tempered paranoid. I didn't have much of a choice. If I wasn't polite, they could stick me with those needles or put me back in that little room or take away my visitor privileges or any number of other things. Besides, there didn't seem to be any urgency or anything to be gained by not being polite, the way there had been before. So I was polite. There was time. — Mark Vonnegut

I saw a study the other day showing that some atypical anti-psychotic was at least as good as mood stabilizers in preventing suicide. It's a very good thing to decrease suicide but we should care at least a little if I'm not killing myself because I feel better or if I just can't remember where I put the damn gun. — Mark Vonnegut

Rarely are there big heroic choices that will settle matters once and for all. The smallest positive step is probably the right one. Try not to argue. If you're right, you don't need to argue. If you're wrong, it won't help. If you're okay, things will be okay. If you're not okay, nothing else matters. — Mark Vonnegut

What occurs to people when they read Kurt [Vonnegut] is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. The world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that. — Mark Vonnegut

My parents were told by the principal of West Barnstable Elementary School and my teacher that I was a bright boy whose spelling was in the retarded range and whose handwriting was the worst they'd ever seen. I find it embarrassing that I spell so badly. I will do almost anything to avoid being embarrassed, but no effort either on my part or on the part of any teacher has ever dented my utter bafflement when it comes to choosing which letters to put down, how many, and in what order. — Mark Vonnegut

I don't think the people today who start hearing voices, stop eating and sleeping, and run amuck are likely to get good treatment. Having more knowledge, better diagnostic capabilities, better medications with fewer side effects, can't make up for the fact that most patients are being treated by doctors, therapists, and hospitals, who are operating under constraints and incentives that reward non-treatment, non-hospitalization, non-therapy, non-follow-up, non-care. Lost to follow-up is the best outcome a health insurer can hope for. — Mark Vonnegut

At the time I would have endorsed the radical notions of R. D. Laing that insanity was a sane reaction to an insane society. Leaving the insane society to set up an independent self-sufficient commune seemed like a very sensible noble brave thing to do - plus it figured to be good for my mental health. Had I gone crazy in Boston or New York I would have blamed my culture and society without a second thought. The arguments were all packed, polished, and ready to fly. — Mark Vonnegut

Life for the unwell is discontinuous and unpredictable. Things just come out of nowhere. People try but mostly do a lousy job of taking care of you. — Mark Vonnegut

Well, I thought, last night I paid my dues. I faced death. Now I can stay. — Mark Vonnegut

My father was a proudly antisocial man who spent most of his time at a typewriter, reflecting negatively on his neighbors and society, throwing in things like "Goddamn it, you've got to be kind." The emphasis was on the Goddamn it. He was proud of the fact that I had no friends — Mark Vonnegut

We're here to get each other through this thing, whatever it is. — Mark Vonnegut

Having their feelings make sense is how people get their kicks. — Mark Vonnegut

Note to self: being Kurt's son, being an ex-mental patient, getting into Harvard, having written a book, and being a doctor are all things that in and of themselves do not make a life. If you lean on them too hard, you'll find that there's not much there. But if you add up a lot of things that aren't in and of themselves enough, it almost starts to add up to something ... — Mark Vonnegut

Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts. What they subvert is the notion that things have to be the way they are, that you are alone, that no one has ever felt the way you have. — Mark Vonnegut

After my first few tastes I was pretty much hooked. I'd have dry spells, months without any or only piddling amounts of grace, but I never forgot about it or stopped wanting it. — Mark Vonnegut

If nothing I say sparks any thoughts or identification, it's possible you're taking too much medication. If it's the greatest talk you've ever heard, you're not taking enough. — Mark Vonnegut

With mental illness the trick is to not take your feelings so seriously; you're zooming in and zooming away from things that go from being too important to being not important at all. — Mark Vonnegut

Are people who have been crazy held to unfair standards?
Of course, but it's not in your best interest to complain. If you're paranoid and people are looking at you funny it's best to let it pass. Psychotic people have an uncanny knack for making their own worst dreams come true. Depressing things happen to depressed people way beyond what you would expect from random distribution. — Mark Vonnegut

Looking at mental health problems the same way we look at other medical problems is factually correct - the best bet for reducing the disabling symptoms and the only way to lessen the stigma and blame that traditionally double or triple the pain. — Mark Vonnegut

A world without prejudice, stigma, and discrimination against those who have or are thought to have mental illness would be a better one for everyone. What so-called normal people are doing when they define disease like manic depression or schizophrenia is reassuring themselves that they don't have a thought disorder or an affective disorder, that their thoughts and feelings make perfect sense. — Mark Vonnegut

Extroverts are amazed and baffled by how much some introverts get done and assume that they, the extroverts, are somehow actually responsible. — Mark Vonnegut

Writing was a spiritual exercise for my father, the only thing he really believed in. — Mark Vonnegut

In a funny way it's almost fun, having everything be so fucked up and managing to adjust. I guess you might say I'm proud. Proud of me, proud of my friends for managing to deal with this thing so well. For most people this would be the end of the world. They'd panic, their friends would panic. Things would get trampled in the stampede. But we've kept our heads, made the necessary allowances, ad can just ride this thing out.

I'm pretty much just putting in time waiting for this cloud to blow over. Waiting for something to come along to make some sense out of all this. Killing time, waiting for some sort of cavalry to come over the hill. There's really not an awful lot I can do but wait. As long as there's no panic, we can hold out for damn near forever. — Mark Vonnegut

The road to medical school started with a job mowing lawns I was far from sure I could handle. — Mark Vonnegut

We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is. — Mark Vonnegut

None of us are entirely well, and none of us are irrecoverably sick. — Mark Vonnegut

My only hope was to be polite. — Mark Vonnegut

The most radical, audacious thing to think is that there might be some point to working hard and thinking hard and reading hard and writing hard and trying to be of service — Mark Vonnegut

Medical care has become a lot of crust and precious little pie. — Mark Vonnegut

Fear that I was very different from everyone else. Fear that deep down inside I was a shallow fraud, that after the revolution or after Jesus came down to straighten everything out, everyone from hippies to hard-hats would unfold and blossom into the beautiful people they were while I would remain a gnarled little wart in the corner, oozing bile and giving off putrid smells. — Mark Vonnegut

The first meeting I really remember with the good doctor was when I was starting to be able to speak English again and making a brave attempt to regain some of my dignity. Trying to be very sane, I went up to him and asked if he was my doctor. He said he didn't think so.
"You're Dr. Dale, aren't you?"
"Why, Mark, of course. I didn't recognize you with clothes on." He had a talent for saying just the right thing. — Mark Vonnegut

Put on all the armor of the Lord. Not just the pretty stuff. — Mark Vonnegut

People with mental illness are very much like people without mental illness only more so. What we lose with a psychotic episode is the comforting assurance that we can't lose our mind. When most people look down they see solid ground. When I look down, I'm not so sure.
Crazy thoughts are not the problem. Everyone has crazy thoughts. Hallucinations and delusions tend to catch the attention but aren't the problem. The problem is that the world becomes discontinuous. We can't attend to the world and take care of ourselves. So others try to take care of us and they do an imperfect job of it. There is no substitute for being well. — Mark Vonnegut

When I talk to the National Alliance on
Mental Illness (NAMI) and other patient
support groups, I take questions at the
end. At one talk I was asked, "What's
the difference between yourself and
someone without mental illness?"
At another talk I was asked, "How do
you make the voices be not so mean?"
I wish I knew. — Mark Vonnegut

He often said he had to be a writer because he wasn't good at anything else. He was not good at being an employee. Back in the mid-1950's, he was employed for Sports Illustrated, briefly. He reported back to work, was asked to write a short piece on a racehorse that jumped over a fence and tried to run away. Kurt stared at the blank piece of paper all morning and then typed, "The horse jumped over the fucking fence," and walked out, self-employed again. — Mark Vonnegut

The Doc. Virginia and Simon had told me that Dr. Dale was my doctor. I have a fuzzy recollection of walking up to some doctor-looking person and being totally absorbed by his gold tie clip. I suspected it was the button to end the world so I didn't touch it. I'm pretty sure it was Dr. Dale. I don't know who else would be so tasteless as to walk around a mental hospital wearing the button to end the world. — Mark Vonnegut

The other day a patient told me that he had gotten into what was a very good college. 'It's not Harvard,' he said.
'Harvard's not Harvard either,' I answered. — Mark Vonnegut

I understand perfectly why some of my autistic patients scream and flap their arms
it's to frighten off extroverts — Mark Vonnegut

Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas? — Mark Vonnegut

The way I played music there was the way I wanted to farm, chop wood, cook, make love, raise children. Everything. A lo of it had to do with things I felt while I played. If only I could feel that sense of total absorption in what I was doing when I was doing other things. It was more than absorption, it was spontaneity, competence, a sense of grace and playfulness, of being in touch with an inexhaustible source of energy and beauty. — Mark Vonnegut

I'm willing to make sense as soon as the rest of the world does. — Mark Vonnegut

I didn't like the '60s because it was too important what people who had nothing to do with the war thought about it. — Mark Vonnegut

If you believe that the dollars made by the pharmaceutical industry are plowed back into research that leads to better and better medications, you probably believe in the tooth fairy as well. — Mark Vonnegut

Today it's nice to be able to entertain odd thoughts without having to marry them all. Thank God. I can think whatever the hell I want. Entertaining odd thoughts won't make you crazy. Refusing to entertain odd thoughts won't make you well. — Mark Vonnegut

I often took him as one of God's little jokes on me. When I was in desperate trouble, what saved me from a fate worse than death? To what do I owe my life? Was it love, affection, understanding, friends, wisdom? No no no. It was a man who looks like a poor copy of Walt Disney, drives pink Cadillacs, wears baby-blue alligator shoes, and appears to have the emotional depth of a slightly retarded potato. — Mark Vonnegut

As well as being one of the worst things that can happen to a human being, schizophrenia can also be one of the richest learning and humanizing experiences life offers. — Mark Vonnegut

Maybe just being open to things being connected made us see more. Now I shudder whenever I find that sort of connectedness creeping into my life. — Mark Vonnegut

There was a point when I was 15 or 16 that I realized that my father wanted me to be a loner. I decided, 'It's okay to be an introvert, but I don't want to be a loner. I want a few other people in my life.' — Mark Vonnegut

Without writers fooling themselves about what their books might accomplish there would be no books at all. — Mark Vonnegut

My mother, who was radiant, young, and beautiful even as she lay dying, heard voices and saw visions, but she always managed to make friends with them and was much too charming to hospitalize even at her craziest. — Mark Vonnegut

It's regrets that make painful memories. When I was crazy I did everything just right. — Mark Vonnegut

Most adults have forgotten what they had to do to survive childhood. — Mark Vonnegut

But my biggest joy and best education and proudest achievement has been being able to show up for work and life and not cause too much trouble a day at a time in spite of my hysterical, somewhat dramatic, nature. — Mark Vonnegut

I take care of military families. Their sacrifices are very real. — Mark Vonnegut

The biggest gift of being unambiguously mentally ill is the time I've saved myself trying to be normal. — Mark Vonnegut

At the end of his life, which had included financial ruin in the Great Depression, his wife's barbiturate addiction and death by overdose, and then his own lung cancer, Doc said, "It was enough to have been a unicorn." What he meant was that he got to do art. It was magic to him that his hands and mind got to make wonderful things, that he didn't have to be just another goat or horse. — Mark Vonnegut

It's probably possible to gain humility by means other than repeated humiliation, but repeated humiliation works very well. — Mark Vonnegut