Editor’s comment: In celebration of graduation season, here are nine graduation addresses collected and published by Vonnegut friend, Dan Wakefield. Reader be reminded that Vonnegut was an outrageous figure, a satirist even in speaking who can wrench your gut. But I marveled at this short read remembering that the great writers and teachers most of all make us think. At least once during each speech I laughed out loud and other times I set down the book to consider what he had just said.   

Favorite excerpts (it was hard to choose just three):  

“When Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross, he said, ‘Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.’ What kind of a man was that? Any real man, obeying the Code of Hammurabi, would have said, ‘Kill them, Dad, and all their friends and relatives, and make their deaths slow and painful.’”

His greatest legacy to us, in my humble opinion, consists of only twelve words. They are the antidote to the poison of the Code of Hammurabi, a formula almost as compact as Albert Einstein’s “E = mc2.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  

Reminding students that few will become famous and that most would find themselves just building their communities he said:  

“Please love that destiny, if it turns out to be yours – for communities are all that is substantial about the world.  Everything else is hoop-la.”

And lastly one of those that caused me to laugh out loud and one which I will now repeat to my three children often:  

“Whenever my children complain about the planet to me, I say ‘Shut up.  I just got here myself.’”

http://www.amazon.com/If-This-Isnt-Nice-What-ebook/dp/B00CC1TF8S