Kurt Vonnegut

Well, the telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.

Kurt Vonnegut, Interview, Mcsweeneys.net
US novelist (1922 - 2007)


If you have not read it, I recommend Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel. It captures the crazed writing, humor and story telling better than some of Vonnegut's books do. It at least offers it in the context that can be grasped, a man struggling with what he saw during the war.  Slaughterhouse, Paths of Glory, and All Quiet on the Western Front shaped my views on the horrors of war, and the disconnect warriors must feel coming back and receiving praise for they had been through.