He told us that one reason he and his friends wanted to start the commune and learn to “live off the land” in a simple way was that “we want to be the last people on earth.” Vonnegut said, “Isn’t that kind of a stuck-up kind of thing to want to be?” In the way he spoke and the way he wrote, Vonnegut was always coming up with the plain-spoken words

What could you do? Major Major asked himself again. What could you do with a man who looked you squarely in the eye and said he would rather die than be killed in combat, a man who was at least as mature and intelligent as you were and who you had to pretend was not? What could you say to him?

Up to that point in his life, Sam hadn’t led much of anything or even been vaguely responsible for other people. He’d managed puzzle hunts out of his parents’ home in high school. He’d spent a year as “Commander” of a twenty-five-person living group at MIT. It crossed his mind, now that he was starting his own business, that he should read up on ho