"And the city was lovely, highly ornamented, like Paris, and untouched by war. It was supposedly an "open" city, not to be attacked since there were no troop concentrations or war industries there. But high explosives were dropped on Dresden by American and British planes on the night of February 13, 1945, just about twenty-one years ago, as I now write. There were no particular targets for the bombs. The hope was that they would create a lot of kindling and drive firemen underground. And then tens of thousands of tiny incendiaries were scattered over the kindling, like seeds on freshly turned loam. More bombs were dropped to keep firemen in their holes, and all the little fires grew, joined one another, became one apocalyptic flame. Hey presto: fire storm. It was the largest massacre in European history, by the way. … Everything was gone but the cellars where 135,000 Hansels and Gretels had been baked like gingerbread men."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
AbsurdistsNovelists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesHumanistsAgnostics from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Introduction (1966)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Kurt Vonnegut
1922 – 2007
US-amerikanischer Schriftsteller
344 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Kurt Vonnegut →
Related Quotes
"1. Find a subject you care about. 2. Do not ramble, though. 3. Keep it simple. 4. Have the guts to cut. 5. Sound like…"
"You learn about life by the accidents you have, over and over again, and your father is always in your head when that…"
"My brother got his doctorate in 1938, I think. If he had gone to work in Germany after that, he would have been helpi…"
"I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for…"
"Literature is idiosyncratic arrangements in horizontal lines in only twenty-six symbols, ten arabic numbers, and abou…"
"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. The child watching TV loves these p…"
"All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remem…"
"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create st…"
"Well, I've worried some about, you know, why write books … why are we teaching people to write books when presidents …"
"The telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangero…"