Kurt Vonnegut? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: Engaging in art is not lucrative. The proportion of artists who become wealthy is minuscule. Yet, the psychological and spiritual rewards are immense. A prominent writer apparently said the following:
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.
These words have been attributed to the best-selling satirical novelist Kurt Vonnegut who wrote “Cat’s Cradle”, “Slaughterhouse-Five”, and the short story collection “Welcome to the Monkey House”. Would you please help me to find a citation?
Reply from Quote Investigator: This quotation appeared in an essay titled “Here is a lesson in creative writing” by Kurt Vonnegut within the 2005 collection “A Man Without a Country”. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 2006 the essay with the quotation was reprinted in the collection “The Best American Nonrequired Reading” edited by Dave Eggers.2
In 2010 a shortened version of the excerpt about appeared in “The Everything Guide To Writing Nonfiction” by Richard D. Bank:3
“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. … Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” — Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
In 2014 the quotation appeared in “Forbes” magazine on a page dedicated to “Thoughts”:4
“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.”
—Kurt Vonnegut
In 2018 “The Best Advice Ever Given” edited by Steven D. Price contained the following entry:5
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.
—KURT VONNEGUT
In conclusion, Kurt Vonnegut deserves credit for the quotation he wrote in “A Man Without a Country” in 2005. Vonnegut’s remark was memorable, and it has appeared in several compilations of quotations.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Marion Boddy-Evans whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
Image Notes: Picture of paint brushes from Alireza Valizadeh at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
- 2005, A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, Edited by Daniel Simon, Chapter: Here is a lesson in creative writing, Quote Page 24, Seven Stories Press, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2006, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Edited by Dave Eggers, Here Is a Lesson in Creative Writing by Kurt Vonnegut (From “A Man Without a Country”), Start Page 348, Quote Page 348, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2010, The Everything Guide To Writing Nonfiction by Richard D. Bank, Chapter 19: Creative Nonfiction, Quote Page 196, Adams Media, Avon, Massachusetts. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2014 November 3, Forbes, Volume 194, Number 6, Thoughts, Quote Page 120, Column 2, Forbes LLC, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2018, The Best Advice Ever Given, Edited by Steven D. Price, Revised by Tom McCarthy, Chapter 7: Hit the Right Keys: Advice on Creativity and the Arts, Quote Page 220, Lyons Press, Guilford, Connecticut: An Imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Lanham, Maryland. (Verified with scans) ↩︎