
Kurt Vonnegut had a way of sticking it to you without you even realizing it. Slaughterhouse-Five is a book that hits like a gut punch—repeatedly—and if you don’t see it coming, that’s your own damn fault.
The phrase “So it goes,” gets thrown around like a cheap joke, but by the time you’re done with the book, it sticks in your head like the smell of stale beer on your shirt.
Why does he use it so much?
I don’t know, maybe it’s because life’s a sick joke, and the punchline is always the same: nothing really matters.
People die, cities burn, and the universe couldn’t care less.
“So it goes,” Vonnegut says. Over and over. It’s not a comforting thing—it’s a slap across the face.
Like the universe is leaning in, whispering in your ear, “Deal with it, pal.”
The Joke’s on You and Me
The thing is, Vonnegut’s not just repeating a phrase because he’s lazy or trying to fill up space. No, no. That’s not Vonnegut.
This is deliberate. “So it goes” isn’t just some phrase to brush off death like it’s no big deal.
It’s his way of reminding you that death doesn’t give a damn.
It comes for all of us, whether we like it or not, and it doesn’t care if you’ve got dreams or plans or a family to care for. It just shows up and says, “So it goes.” End of story.
Billy Pilgrim, that poor bastard, gets it the worst. He doesn’t ask for any of this. He’s a soldier, a survivor, a time traveler—all in one go.
One minute he’s watching his fellow soldiers get blown to bits, the next, he’s in some alien zoo, watching the universe collapse in on itself.
But the thing is, it all happens at once. There’s no before, no after—just so it goes. Life doesn’t wait for you to catch up. It runs you over like a freight train. And just when you think it’s over? It’s not. It just keeps going. So it goes.

Breaking It Down
Now, imagine you’re a kid, and someone’s explaining this to you in a way you can get.
You’re still a bit wide-eyed, still holding onto the idea that maybe things will make sense one day.
Here’s how it might go:
“Okay, kid, here’s the deal. Life’s like a big, ugly joke. Sometimes people die. Sometimes things fall apart. And the only thing you can say is, ‘So it goes.’
It’s not because we like it or it feels good, but because that’s the way it is.
Things die, wars happen, people get sick, and the world doesn’t care.
But you’ve gotta keep going. It doesn’t wait for you to feel better.
Life’s a cold, heartless thing that keeps moving. But don’t worry, kid. You’ll get used to it.”
And the kid, of course, doesn’t get it. They’ll never really get it until they’ve seen enough of the world to understand that “So it goes” isn’t just some throwaway phrase.
It’s the sound of your soul cracking.

The Darkness of It All
We don’t need more books telling us life is meaningless.
We already know that. We see it every day—people getting screwed over by the system, watching their dreams drown in a sea of bills and bad decisions.
But Vonnegut? He nails it. “So it goes,” he says. And there’s nothing more terrifying than realizing that’s all we’ve got.
Death happens. The universe shrugs. And you, my friend, are nothing more than a speck of dust in a massive, indifferent cosmos.
We’re all just Billy Pilgrims stumbling through time, picking up the pieces of the wreckage, and pretending like it all makes sense.
“So it goes.” And that’s the problem: nothing makes sense. You look around, and what do you see?
People making the same mistakes over and over, trying to convince themselves that life’s supposed to mean something more than this.
But the truth is, it doesn’t. There’s no great answer. Just “So it goes.”

But Wait, There’s a Counter Punch
Now, I get it. Some folks can’t stand the idea that life’s just a cruel joke. They refuse to roll over and accept that we’re all just meat sacks stumbling toward the grave.
They’re desperate to find meaning, even in the face of suffering.
Take some of these philosophers and writers, for instance.
They twist themselves into knots, trying to convince us that pain can be something noble.
Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re just trying to make the best of a bad situation. But for the rest of us?
The ones who’ve been chewed up, spit out, and left with nothing but the dust of their hopes and dreams? “So it goes” feels like the truth. It feels like a bullet to the head of all that other nonsense.
Take Camus, the strange French bird. He said life’s absurd, but we should fight through it, find meaning in the struggle.
Well, good luck with that, Albert. The struggle’s the thing that keeps us down, like a boot on our neck.
And then there’s Kafka, that tortured soul, trapped in his own spider web of existential dread. Dude thought life was a trial, that every day was like walking into a courtroom where the judge had already decided we’re guilty.
“So it goes,” Vonnegut says, because it’s not about answers or meaning—it’s about surviving the mess, the crapstorm of it all.
And then, you’ve got Sartre, the guy who tried to tell us we could create our own meaning.
Sure, we can do that. But after a long day of broken dreams and cheap whiskey, it’s hard to believe we’re actually shaping anything.
Hell, maybe we’re just spinning in circles, chasing our own tails.
“We are condemned to be free,” Sartre said. Well, being free in a world like this feels more like being stuck in a cage with no exit, like a dog biting at its own tail.
Nietzsche’s in the mix too—classic Nietzsche, the guy who thought suffering was the key to greatness. Yeah, sure, Friedrich. I’ll embrace my pain, I’ll let it sharpen me into something stronger.
But after the 50th hangover, after losing more than you gain, the only thing suffering does is remind you how much life sucks.
Nietzsche’s Übermensch—the so-called “superman”—seems like a fantasy when you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel with a bottle of cheap gin.
And let’s not forget the American greats: Hemingway and Faulkner.
They tried to put a noble face on suffering, making it into a badge of honor. But underneath all their bravado and drinking, their characters were just desperate souls, groping for meaning in a world that gave none.
Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea is a story of a man who fights against the ocean, only to come back with nothing but a skeleton.
Faulkner’s characters? Broken, always struggling to survive, always weighed down by something invisible, but heavy enough to crush them. “So it goes.”
So, yeah, these guys all think they’ve got answers.
They want to make meaning out of suffering, but sometimes the real truth is simpler: life’s absurd, and the only thing we can do is ride the wave and try not to drown in it.
Because when the world is on fire, “So it goes,” and we just keep on stumbling forward.
Table 1: Thinkers Who Think Life Has More Than “So It Goes”
Philosopher | What They Think About Life | Key Work |
---|---|---|
Albert Camus | Life is absurd, but we can find meaning in the struggle | The Myth of Sisyphus |
Franz Kafka | Life is a trial, and we’re all guilty from the start | The Trial |
Jean-Paul Sartre | Life is what we make of it; we create our own purpose | Being and Nothingness |
Friedrich Nietzsche | Embrace suffering to become stronger and find greatness | Thus Spoke Zarathustra |
William Faulkner | Suffering is woven into the fabric of life; we must endure | As I Lay Dying |
Ernest Hemingway | Suffering is inevitable; what matters is how we face it | The Old Man and the Sea |
In the end, they’re all just trying to slap a shiny coat of paint over the rusted wreck of the human experience.
But deep down, it’s just an endless loop of pain, and “So it goes.”

Brutally Honest Analysis Of Key Vonnegut Quotes
“So it goes.” may be the glue, but there are other quotes from Vonnegut that hit hard. Besides, as you already know, for some weird reason, this article section is the most loved.
Let’s roll, fellas.
“- Why me?
– That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?
– Yes.
– Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Explanation:
Life’s a bit of a puzzle, isn’t it? No clear answers, no grand design. We often ask, “Why me?” like there’s a reason, some kind of deeper meaning behind our struggles.
But the truth is, sometimes things just unfold the way they do.
You’re born, you’re here, and in the end, things might not make sense. But that’s just the way it works. You’re one more bug stuck in amber, and that’s about it.
They say asking “Why me?” is a very human thing, like we’re all wired to search for some kind of purpose.
We chase after meaning, thinking it’s something we can find, but in the end, we just end up spinning in circles. Life doesn’t really care about the questions we ask.
And that amber? It’s not just some random thing. It’s this moment, frozen in time. You can’t change it, can’t step out of it.
Time doesn’t wait for you to figure it out. It just is. You’re alive, and that’s all there is to it. Trying to find why is like trying to grab smoke—it slips right through your fingers.
There’s no why. No big cosmic plan, no higher purpose. Just moments, some making sense, others not.
You’re here, like everyone else, trying to piece it all together. But in the end, it’s all just part of the same unpredictable ride.
No meaning to it, no great truth. Just the next thing, the next step. And you keep moving.
So, let’s go“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Explanation:
It’s the American way, isn’t it? Looking for answers in all the wrong places—finding meaning in trinkets and junk, as if some little porcelain cat or snow globe is gonna make it all click.
We all do it, at least for a while. The cheap souvenirs, the shiny little baubles, like somehow they’ll stitch the mess of life together and give us some peace of mind.
As if those things, made in some faraway factory by hands that’ll never touch us, will hold the answers to our endless questions.
But hell, they don’t mean a damn thing. Just plastic and paint and the illusion of something important.
That’s Vonnegut’s point, and it’s a kick in the teeth. You can’t build your life on a handful of meaningless crap.
But people do it anyway—grabbing at whatever’s shiny and easy, because facing up to the messiness of life, the chaos, the uncertainty?
That’s too damn hard. It’s easier to pretend that a keychain from a tourist trap is some kind of answer.
The truth? We’re all just fools, trying to patch up our souls with stuff that won’t last.
And yet, we keep at it. Searching for truth in gift shops. And at the end of the day, the only thing that’s left is a pile of crap we can’t take with us. So it goes.
“I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren’t going to want to go on living.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Explanation:
It’s simple, really. Life is tough, ugly, and full of shit. People need stories—comfort, illusions, something to keep them from falling apart. Without those lies, without some bullshit to make sense of it all, nobody would want to get out of bed. The truth? It’s too much. Too heavy. Too pointless.
In a world where everything’s random and meaningless, you’ve got to sell them a dream, a reason to keep breathing. Without that, they’ll check out, one way or another. It’s that simple.

The Cold, Hard Truth
Here’s the ugly truth: Vonnegut wasn’t trying to give us hope. He wasn’t trying to make us feel better about the terrible things that happen to us.
He wasn’t offering a solution. What he gave us was the one thing we really needed to hear: life doesn’t care about you.
It never has and it never will. You’re just another flash in the pan. And one day, like everyone else, you’ll be dead.
And what will be left? A tombstone, maybe, or just an old obituary no one bothers to read. “So it goes,” Vonnegut says. And that’s it.
But here’s the weird thing. Even in all that darkness, there’s a small flicker of hope. A glimmer of resistance in the face of it all.
Maybe you don’t find meaning. Maybe you can’t. But the choices you make, the way you live and die—it matters.
You matter, even if it’s just for a second.
So maybe, just maybe, that’s all we’ve got left.
A second.
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