[](/assets/2013/04/Ebert.jpg) Gene Siskel, left, and Roger Ebert pose in this undated photograph. Ebert died on Thursday, April 4 after a long battle with cancer. ©Disney-ABC Domestic Television

You can learn a lot on how to be better in whatever you do from reading [Ebert’s pieces](http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/). He transformed a genre of writing synonymous with arrogance, hatred, and extreme judgment, into an elegant voice of wisdom that goes beyond movies.

Ebert was much more than a movie critic. He was a voice of a generation.

[Someone wrote](http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/05/tech/social-media/roger-ebert-social-media/) that when he lost his ability to speak, [he found his voice in Twitter](http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/06/tweet_tweet_tweet.html):

> My rules for Twittering are few: I tweet in basic English. I avoid abbreviations and ChatSpell. I go for complete sentences. I try to make my links worth a click. I am not above snark, no matter what I may have written in the past. I tweet my interests, including science and politics, as well as the movies. I try to keep links to stuff on my own site down to around 5 or 10%. I try to think twice before posting.

He’s a regular participant in the [New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption Content](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonists/2011/04/roger-ebert-wins-the-cartoon-caption-contest.html), and [I discovered that he also had a passion for drawing](/2010/07/roger-the-sketcher/) that nobody seems to care about.

The man just kept surprising me, even after his departure this week. He did not win Oprah Winfrey’s heart, but he won the [Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1975](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Pulitzer_Prize), the first ever awarded to a critic. He swore not to marry before his mother departed, and [he soon married Chaz](http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/07/roger_loves_chaz.html), the woman of his life, shortly after his mother died.

This is the kind of actions real heroes do. They need not to scream on a battle well-fought, but people marched upon his victory on his exit.

So long, Roger.