From Cat's Cradle
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.:
He was sitting
on a rock. He was barefoot. His feet were frosty with ice-nine. His
only garment was a white bedspread with blue tufts. The tufts said Casa
Mona. He took no note of our arrival. In one hand was a pencil. In the
other was paper.
"Bokonon?"
"Yes?"
"May
I ask what you're thinking?"
"I
am thinking, young man, about the final sentence for The Books of Bokonon.
The time for the final sentence has come."
"Any luck?"
He shrugged and
handed me a piece of paper.
This
is what it read:
If I were a younger man, I would write a history of
human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie
down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from
the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men;
and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly,
and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.
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