KURT VONNEGUT

Dear Emma—

I congratulate you and your class for wanting to do something about world hunger.

A poem I often quote in lectures is this one by William Blake:

The Angel that presided o’er my birth

Said, “Little creature, form’d of Joy & Mirth,

Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth.”

That’s the whole thing, Emma, but it seems to me that there is a whole lot there, if you stop to think about it. It says to me that loving people are born that way, and don’t need any prods or rewards to make them helpful, compassionate and affectionate.

I sometimes paraphrase it ever so slightly when talking to people who want to be writers and who need advice. In the third line I substitute “write” for “love.”

Cheers,

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