Well, I’ve composed myself a little more since 8 am this morning.
I’ve been reading a lot of wonderful things about Vonnegut online, and I’m going to compile them here in a humble little attempt at a tribute to one of my greatest heros.
First, a wonderfully appropriate quote from an interview:
VONNEGUT: Well, there were—or maybe there are—a number of dead people out there. (Laughs.) It’s a very crowded place. There is a Beethoven and a Shakespeare and a Hitler and an entire family out there. But, fortunately, you don’t have to go to heaven to talk to some of them. A lot of them have left us amazing things on paper, and so their lives persist here anyway. Wonderful words. Beautiful music. Stunning things that resonate.
Next, some of my favorite Vonnegut quotes:
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.
The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.
The things other people have put into my head, at any rate, do not fit together nicely, are often useless and ugly, are out of proportion with one another, are out of proportion with life as it really is outside my head.
A great Vonnegut interview.
Another great Vonnegut interview.
Vonnegut’s great Paris Review interview.
An online directory of Bokonon.
Audio file of Vonnegut reading a section of Slaughterhouse Five.
Links to good obits posted today:
NY Times
Yahoo
BBC
Strange but true trivia: In the novel Timequake, Vonnegut writes that his alter-ego, Kilgore Trout, (also) dies at the age of eighty-four. (From Mental Floss)
And almost all of my favorite blogs posted the unhappy news: Gawker, BoingBoing, Mental Floss, Neatorama, Cake + Pie, The Book Maven.
Kurt, I hope that everything was beautiful and that nothing hurt.
“And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ‘Kurt is up in heaven now.’ That’s my favorite joke.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com.)
