On purpose:

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

On writing:

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.

On war:

War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.

On Dresden and Slaughterhouse Five:

The raid didn’t shorten the war by half a second, didn’t weaken a German defense or attack anywhere, didn’t free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefited. Me. I got several dollars for each person killed. Imagine.

On book reviews:

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

On science:

The fruits of science so far, put into the hands of governments, have turned out to be cruelties and stupidities exceeding by far those of the Spanish Inquisition and Genghis Khan and Ivan the Terrible and most of the demented Roman emperors.

On the environment:

We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.

On humans:

We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.

On Humanism:

Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.

On happiness:

Human beings will be happier — not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie — but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia.

On his attempted suicide:

It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.

On the afterlife:

When you’re dead, you’re dead.