Excerpt from Palm Sunday, where Kurt Vonnegut grades his own books.
Yes, and it wasn't the only bad job I ever did. I have graded my separate works from A to D. The grades I hand out to myself do not place me in literary history. I am comparing myself with myself. Thus can I give myself an A-plus for Cat's Cradle, while knowing that there was a writer named William Shakespeare. The report card is chronological, so you can plot my rise and fall on graph paper, if you like:
| Player Piano | B |
| The Sirens of Titan | A |
| Mother Night | A |
| Cat's Cradle | A-plus |
| God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater | A |
| Slaughterhouse-Five | A-plus |
| Welcome to the Monkey House | B-minus |
| Happy Birthday, Wanda June | D |
| Breakfast of Champions | C |
| Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons | C |
| Slapstick | D |
| Jailbird | A |
| Palm Sunday | C |