“Future civilizations – better civilizations than this one – are going to judge all men by the extent to which they’ve been artists. You and I, if some future archaeologist finds our works miraculously preserved in some city dump, will be judged by the quality of our creations. Nothing else about us will matter.”
Although apparently written with a thin magic marker on the back of a piece of toilet paper, this single page from the Fall 2004 issue of the Backwards City Review is Vonnegut’s attempt to explain that unanswerable question that annoys all artists: “Where do you get your ideas from?” Where do ... Read more
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I agree with the idea that it’s unnatural, but it wasn’t Vonnegut, as far as I know, who said it (first).
“Future civilizations – better civilizations than this one – are going to judge all men by the extent to which they’ve been artists. You and I, if some future archaeologist finds our works miraculously preserved in some city dump, will be judged by the quality of our creations. Nothing else about us will matter.”
More ideas, and where he got them are here https://www.wired.com/2007/04/where-kurt-vonn/