Beloved author, artist and outspoken political activist Kurt Vonnegut has died at the age of 84. His death is said to be the result of a brain injury he suffered from a fall several weeks ago.

Vonnegut was a prolific author and wrote over 19 novels and plenty of short stories and essays. Many of his books were best sellers and remain favorites.

Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

“I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations,” Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In “Slaughterhouse-Five,” he drew a headstone with the epitaph: “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.”

He was an active speaker, and writer up until the end of his life, and became a kind of cult hero to the peace movement. Having witnessed the bombing of Dresden during World War II, Vonnegut was only one of seven US prisoners of war to survive, and knew the atrocities of war firsthand. He did not mince words in his criticism of U.S. President George W. Bush, and used his unique wit and celebrity to encourage protest. Addressing students at a packed auditorium at Ohio state last spring, he said “You’re all perfectly safe, by the way. I took off my shoes at the airport. The terrorists hate the smell of feet.”

He went on to discuss the gross inequalities in life, and the way that average people struggle to be heard in a political system run by the economic elite:

“We have people in this country who are richer than whole countries,” he says. “They run everything.

“We have no Democratic Party. It’s financed by the same millionaires and billionaires as the Republicans.

“So we have no representatives in Washington. Working people have no leverage whatsoever.

“I’m trying to write a novel about the end of the world. But the world is really ending! It’s becoming more and more uninhabitable because of our addiction to oil.

“Bush used that line recently,” Vonnegut adds. “I should sue him for plagiarism.”

Things have gotten so bad, he says, “people are in revolt again life itself.”

Our economy has been making money, but “all the money that should have gone into research and development has gone into executive compensation. If people insist on living as if there’s no tomorrow, there really won’t be one.

“As the world is ending, I’m always glad to be entertained for a few moments. The best way to do that is with music. You should practice once a night.

“If you want really want to hurt your parents and don’t want to be gay, go into the arts,” he says.

Then he breaks into song, doing a passable, tender rendition of “Stardust Memories.”

By this time this packed hall has grown reverential. The sound system is appropriately tenuous. Straining to hear every word is both an effort and a meditation.

“To hell with the advances in computers,” he says after he finishes singing. “YOU are supposed to advance and become, not the computers. Find out what’s inside you. And don’t kill anybody.

“There are no factories any more. Where are the jobs supposed to come from? There’s nothing for people to do anymore. We need to ask the Seminoles: ‘what the hell did you do?’’ after the tribe’s traditional livelihood was taken away.

Answering questions written in by students, he explains the meaning of life. “We should be kind to each other. Be civil. And appreciate the good moments by saying ‘If this isn’t nice, what is?’

I remember well a quote from Breakfast of Champions, one of many Vonnegut novels I read in my teens and twenties. Vonnegut had another answer at that time for the meaning of life, speaking through protagonist Kilgore Trout:

To be
the eyes
and ears
and conscience
of the Creator of the Universe,
you fool.

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut, you spoke to so many of us with such unique humor, insight, and candor that we could never get enough.

Here are some pictures of the late Kurt Vonnegut including his art, which is reminiscent of Miro. The drawing in the header is a self portrait.