The man was a master of BS of the most humane sort.

A brief example from an interview:

ONNEGUT Yes. The Shortridge Daily Echo. There was a print shop right in the school. Students wrote the paper. Students set the type. I've always found it easy to write. Also, I learned to write for peers rather than for teachers. Most beginning writers don't
get to write for peers - to catch hell from peers.

INTERVIEWER So every afternoon you would go to the Echo office -

VONNEGUT Yeah. And one time, while I was writing, I happened to sniff my armpits absentmindedly. Several people saw me do it, and thought it was funny - and ever after that I was given the name "Snarf". In the annual for my graduating class, the class of
1940, I'm listed as "Kurt Snarfield Vonnegut, Jr." Technically, I wasn't really a snarf. A snarf was a person who went around sniffing girls' bicycle saddles. I didn't do that. Twerp also had a very specific meaning, which few people know now. Through careless
usage, twerp is a pretty formless insult now.

INTERVIEWER What is a twerp in the strictest sense, in the original sense?

VONNEGUT It's a person who inserts a set of false teeth between the cheeks of his ass.

INTERVIEWER I see.

VONNEGUT I beg your pardon; between the cheeks of his or her ass. I'm always offending feminists that way.

INTERVIEWER I don't quite understand why someone would do that with false teeth.

VONNEGUT In order to bite the buttons off the backseats of taxicabs. That's the only reason twerps do it. It's all that turns them on. ...