Lifelong heavy smoker dies after fall
You obstinate old man. You, who spent half his career re-writing the same book again and again.
If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.
The last sentence of Cat's Cradle
Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end,
And our God will take things back that He to us did lend.
And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God,
Why just go ahead and scold Him. He'll just smile and nod.
A Calypso from The Books Of Bokonon, a fictional religious text from Cat's Cradle
I am going to miss you, old man, more than I've ever missed anyone I never met. You were perverse, and you kept saying the same things again and again. And you lived your life like you thought you should already be dead. You would hate to be mourned, but I owe you much of my world view so mourn you I must. And for this I apologise.
Kurt... I read your books when my grandfather died, I read your books when my relationships fell. Hell, I took your books to Auschwitz for inspiration. I've written "Bokononist" on a fucking census. I want your words on my gravestone, so it saddens me that they will also be on yours. Some consider you a literary titan, some speak of you as a counter-culture figure. To me you were something more: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. – Science Fiction Writer