Like just about everyone else who saw Roger Ebert’s “Leave of Presence” blog entry of two days ago, I was stunned to learn of his death today. “So soon?” I said when I first saw a headline on Facebook.

I’ll miss his writing, although I didn’t read it regularly. I’m not much of a movie-goer, so most of what he did was interesting to me but not compelling. That’s my loss. When he wrote about current events or politics he engaged me.

There are tributes being written all over the Internet, of course. Here’s John Scalzi’s.

He was a great teacher. He was passionate about film — not just knowledgeable about films and directors and actors, but in love with the form, in a way that came through in every review. Even when a movie was bad, you could tell that at least part of the reason Ebert was annoyed was because the film failed its medium, which could achieve amazing things. But as passionate as he was about film, he wasn’t precious about it. Ebert loved film, but what I think he loved most of all was the fact that it entertained him so. He loved being entertained, and he loved telling people, in language which was direct and to the point (he worked for the Sun-Times, the blue collar paper in town) what about the films was so entertaining. What he taught me about film criticism is that film criticism isn’t about showing off what you know about film, it was about sharing what made you love film.

I can’t add anything to that.

R.I.P., Mr. Ebert.