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Pop Culture
Mar 12, 2013, 08:03AM

No One Wants Hard Facts

A 2002 McSweeney’s interview with the late author Kurt Vonnegut vs. a 2012 Rocksucker interview with musician Matthew Friedberger.

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NicoleDoring

Kurt Vonnegut: I don’t want to go to parties anymore.

Matthew Friedberger: I don’t know what I should say.

Vonnegut: See, that’s just the setup.

Friedberger: I think its purpose is to divide people, make friends argue with each other.

Vonnegut: Why do you think I smoke so much?

Friedberger: I'm very surprised by that, and if you don't justify yourself then nobody's going to do it for you.

Vonnegut: Fuck you—you know what I’m saying?

Friedberger: No.

Vonnegut: There are no familiar faces anymore.

Friedberger: They're out there in some form if people want to buy them.

Vonnegut: Well, anything’s possible, isn’t it?

Friedberger: It’s debatable to some extent, I suppose.

Vonnegut: No one wants hard facts.

Friedberger: Those are some sons of bitches, I suppose.

Vonnegut: Oh, I imagine you’re born that way.

Vonnegut: Supposedly evolution and natural selection are all about survival, but we haven’t gotten smarter over the years, only more dangerous.

Friedberger: Now it's performance, a conscious thing rather than a naive one.

Vonnegut: I don’t like people saying one thing and meaning the other.

Friedberger: They can often seem unconnected, different things as opposed to one connected statement, and you might like the one part but don't find the rest of it amusing at all.

Vonnegut: I guess we’ll never know.

Friedberger: I can’t remember.

Vonnegut: This is why drugs are as pervasive as they are today.

Friedberger: It wasn’t something they planned; it’s just the way it turned out.

Vonnegut: Well, yeah. I mean, if they can kill Christ, they can kill anybody!

Friedberger: That could be a lot of fun.

Vonnegut: See how that works? Did you see that? I threatened you.

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