He influenced so many writers. I love these Vonnegut quotes:

“Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.”

“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”

“Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.”

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”

“Human beings will be happier – not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia.”

“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.”

“People don’t come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.”

His books–Slaughterhouse-Five, Sirens of Titan, Player Piano and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater–affected me. I was in college, becoming a writer.

We should have memorial services for Vonnegut all over. Read his work aloud. Remember.