verbava все записи автора Kurt Vonnegut – Happy Birthday, Wanda June

Hello. I am Wanda June. Today was going to be my birthday, but I was hit by an ice-cream truck before I could have my party. I am dead now. I am in Heaven. That is why my parents did not pick up the cake at the bakery. I am not mad at the ice-cream truck driver, even though he was drunk when he hit me. It didn't hurt much. It wasn't even as bad as the sting of a bumblebee. I am really happy here! It's so much fun. I am glad the driver was drunk. If he hadn't been, I might not have got to Heaven for years and years and years. I would have had to go to high school first, and then beauty college. I would have had to get married and have babies and everything. Now I can just play and play and play. Any time I want any pink cotton candy I can have some. Everybody up here is happy- the animals and the dead soldiers and people who went to the electric chair and everything. They're all glad for whatever sent them here.
Nobody is mad. We're all too busy playing shuffleboard. So if you think of killing somebody, don't worry about it. Just go ahead and do it. Whoever you do it to should kiss you for doing it.

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You must be crazy as a fruitcake.

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Don't lecture me on race relations. I don't have a molecule of prejudice. I've been in battle with every kind of man there is. I've been in bed with every kind of woman there is-from a Laplander to a Tierra del Fuegian. If I'd ever been to the South Pole, there'd be a hell of a lot of penguins who looked like me.

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When I was a naive young recruit in Spain, I used to wonder why soldiers bayoneted oil paintings, shot the noses off of statues and defecated into grand pianos. I now understand: It was to teach civilians the deepest sort of respect for men in uniform - uncontrollable fear.

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Nothing's real to some people unless they've got photographs.

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You keep on saying "deep" and "deeply." I wish something good would happen on the surface sometime.

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HAROLD They were enemies. We were at war.
LOOSELEAF Yeah, Jesus - but wars would be a lot better, I think, if guys would say to themselves sometimes, "Jesus - I'm not going to do that to the enemy. That's too much."

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The old heroes are going to have to get used to this, Harold - the new heroes who refuse to fight.
They're trying to save the planet.
There's no time for battle, no point to battle anymore.

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