All of the arts, with the exception of architecture, are practical jokes, making people respond emotionally and at no risk to themselves, because things aren't really happening. A good example would be "The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci.

What I do, which is becoming more and more impractical I think, is make people respond to idiosyncratic arrangements of 26 phonetic symbols and ten Arabic numbers in horizontal lines on a page. And there was a time when this was a form of home entertainment, and so it was worthwhile for people to learn how to read. But reading it is actually quite difficult--I mean it is as hard as learning to read music, and it's a remarkable skill. And if you take ink on paper and make people respond to it, they themselves are going to have to be performers. It's like arriving at a concert hall and being handed a violin, and you're expected to play. That's what we expect readers to do, perform themselves, because they're half of the performance.

But ink on paper is no way to tell a story anymore. Film and movies are the best way to tell a story today. That works, so you don't have to be a performer yourself anymore. Because of our terrible high schools, we have a huge illiterate population, but they can sure as hell watch a movie.

I would guess that people who are literate somehow get their minds improved, or they get more personally involved in a story when they read it because their own brains are involved. Watching TV or a movie, your brain need not be involved, and you can just kill time.
-- Excerpted from an interview with Lacey Rose on Oct. 17, 2005.

I didn't agree with Vonnegut all the time -- hell, I didn't even *understand* him all the time. But I always admired his passion. And his compassion. Particularly his compassion.

He never failed to make me think. And he was one of those rare authors who can turn a sentence just so -- just *so* -- that I'd forgive him again & again for the things I didn't get.