Kurt Vonnegut

The secret of good writing is caring.

Your pleasant note of so long ago bobbed to the surface of the paper dunes in my disaster area of an office. I

One thing that makes all my books tough to write is that I try to tell stories without the almost essential elements of blame and villainy. This letter would be a horrible one to answer,

that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them.

am sure you are still ready to respond, in effect, “Yes, yes—but it still remains our right and our responsibility to decide what books our children are going to be made to read in our community.” This is surely so. But it is also true that if you exercise that right and fulfill that responsibility in an ignorant, harsh, un-American manner, then pe

bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are.

You were a master when I first met you, and masters do not grow. They simply work. So you will never get any news of your having grown from me. Growth is for apprentices. I welcome anything you do. Just now, I would especially welcome your poetry. Personally, I prefer your smaller works, just as I prefer smaller Vermeers. But that way lies destitut

As a teacher, I was usually pretty good at helping people become what they wanted to become. I didn’t try to make them resemble me.

even speculating or living especially high? Anyway—you and Jane and Dan hold a meeting. I know it is the place of the man to do brilliant things with money, but this manhood thing has me completely worn out. I just want to be a writer.