Last night Kilgore Trout died. He was 84.

All of Tralfamadore is in mourning. Here on earth, we too feel the empty space left by one of our greatest American writers: Kurt Vonnegut.

"I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke."

- from A Man Without a Country (2005)