More from Vonnegut

This morning, I ran across an article from the Guardian books page discussing Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and his death. It mentioned another of Vonnegut's quotations: "We are put on earth to fart around. Don't let anyone tell you any different."

The article also links to an excerpt from Vonnegut's last book, A Man Without A Country. In this book, Vonnegut notes that the country he loved and fought for in the Second World War has been taken over by C-students from Yale, white supremacists masquerading as Christians, and people with psychopathic personalities. As he puts it:

In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African-Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appallingly powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed.

For more on Vonnegut, you can check out his Paris Review interview (in which, basically, he was his own interviewer). And, if you haven't read any of his books, I'd recommend Mother Night or Slaughterhouse-Five as a good place to start.