Portland Public Library

If this isn't nice, what is?, the graduation speeches and other words to live by, Kurt Vonnegut ; selected and introduced by Dan Wakefield

eng

illustrations

index present

speeches

If this isn't nice, what is?

936360408

Kurt Vonnegut ; selected and introduced by Dan Wakefield

the graduation speeches and other words to live by

Selected and introduced by fellow novelist and friend Dan Wakefield, this much-expanded edition now includes a total of fifteen of Kurt Vonnegut's speeches. In each of these talks Vonnegut takes pains to find the few things worth saying and a conversational voice to say them in that isn't heavy-handed or pretentious or glib, but funny and serious and joyful even if sometimes without seeming so

Introduction -- Baccalaureate -- How to make money and find love! -- Advice to graduating women (that all men should know!) -- How to have something most billionaires don't -- How music cures our ills (and there are lots of them) -- What the "ghost dance" of the Native Americans and the French painters who led the Cubist movement have in common -- How I learned from a teacher what artists do -- Don't forget where you come from -- Why social justice does more than art to nourish the American dream -- How to be a wise guy or a wise girl -- Why you can't stop me from speaking ill of Thomas Jefferson -- Don't despair if you never went to college! -- How I got my first job as a reporter and learned to write in a simple, direct way, while not getting a degree in anthropology -- Somebody whould have told me not to join a fraternity -- The most censored writer of his time defends the First Amendment -- My dog likes everybody, but that was not inspired by ancient Greece and Rome or the Renaissance -- Unstuck in time : quotes to ponder

If this is not nice, what is?