During his early years (and even now with today's youth) he captured the imagination of the young people and made them truly think about issues they had never before considered.  He did this in a humorous way, and helped them to formulate dreams for their futures.

Adults of his age, however, considered him and others like him to be lazy no good for nothing punks.  The way he thought did not conform--he went against the grain--and encouraged others to follow.  Vonnegut was the type to jump in a car and drive until he ran out of gas, then get a job where his tank went empty until he earned enough to fill the tank and go again.  He was 'aimless' and 'dangerous' and that's exactly what the young people loved about him.

Often called the voice of the counter-culture, Vonnegut died this year, in April of 2007.  The New York Times said of his nearly fifty year career, that Vonnegut "caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation" and that Vonnegut was possessed of  "dark comic talent with an urgent moral vision."   The BBC said he was the primary influence of a generation" and CNN characterized his body of work as "absurdist" and cynical." 

Vonnegut had a way of infusing humor and truth in a way that stripped issues of their guises.  Through his work, many readers felt more comfortable voicing their own dissenting opinions about the state of the nation during the World War II, Vietnam eras and beyond.