pointy stick for your convenience

i'm reading the book that my library categorizes as kurt vonnegut's biography and it keeps making me cough (which is how i laugh when i have the flu). its mostly new stuff, but i recognize some of these bits from his other books. here's one that i really liked from God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian and i kept wishing i'd copied it down when i was reading that book and now it seems i have been given a second chance:

"Why are so many people getting divorced today? It's because most of us don't have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to.

A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos, the Kennedys.
But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but its a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but its a man.
When a couple has an argument nowadays, they may think its about money or power or sex or how to raise the kids or whatever.  What they are really saying to each other, though without realizing it, is this: "You are not enough people!"

A husband, a wife, and some kids is not a family. Its a terribly vulnerable survival unit."

and on why he's upset that smoking didn't kill him:

"The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick, and Colon."

*cough* *hack* *cough*    *splutter* *cough*