"Q: You spend the entire book going back and forth between this mortal coil and the afterlife. VONNEGUT: Oh, it's just a short book. A pamphlet, really. Q: Well, in your pamphlet, then, you spend a good deal of time talking with the dead. What do you think we can learn from those who have bailed-out before us? VONNEGUT: Well, there were—or maybe there are—a number of dead people out there. (Laughs.) It's a very crowded place. There is a Beethoven and a Shakespeare and a Hitler and an entire family out there. But, fortunately, you don't have to go to heaven to talk to some of them. A lot of them have left us amazing things on paper, and so their lives persist here anyway. Wonderful words. Beautiful music. Stunning things that resonate. I am, as we talk, quoting Shakespeare. I'm writing about the death of eloquence. Eloquence was so ordinary back then, in the time of Shakespeare. In contrast to Shakespearean speech, I was watching one of those television talk shows the other night where people air their disagreements with other people. There is a scene in Othello where Iago wants to get Cassio drunk on alcohol and ... Well, wait. Do you want to hear it? Q: Sure. VONNEGUT: Hold on. I'll get it. (Long pause, papers shuffling.) OK. I've got it. So Iago says, "Come, lieutenant, I have a stoup of wine; and here without are a brace of Cyprus gallants that would fain have a measure to the health of black Othello." Cassio turns down the drink and says, "Not tonight, good Iago; I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment." And then we get back to what I saw the other guy say on TV—well, I read his lips actually, because we don't get anything real on our televisions. And this talk-show guy said, "Fuck you—you know what I'm saying?"