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I Existed Before Star Trek. I Started In Live Television. I Was There When The Cameras Were As Big As A Table, Had Internal Fans That Were Whirring And Tubes That, Because Of The Heat, Had To Come Right Up To Our Face For A Close-up. Now, We Are Talking About Green Screen And Putting Us In Locations That We'll Never Visit. What Has Happened To Us Is A Miracle, And The Miracle Is Our Inventiveness. The Tragedy Of Our Lives Is Also Our Inventiveness.

-William Shatner

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I Existed Before Star

William Shatner

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I Existed Before Star Trek. I Started In Live Television. I Was There When The Cameras Were As Big As A Table, Had Internal Fans That Were Whirring And Tubes That, Because Of The Heat, Had To Come Right Up To Our Face For A Close-up. Now, We Are Talking About Green Screen And Putting Us In Locations That We'll Never Visit. What Has Happened To Us Is A Miracle, And The Miracle Is Our Inventiveness. The Tragedy Of Our Lives Is Also Our Inventiveness.

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If Saving Money Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right!

Death Is An Absolute Marvel.

When There Are Tiers Of Meaning In An Ad It Intrigues The Audience And They Look For It Again And Again.

Don't Be Afraid Of Making An Ass Of Yourself. I Do It All The Time And Look What I Got.

It's I Who Have To Talk Fast. It's You Who Have To Think Fast.

I Love Cameras But I Find Myself Reluctantly Taking Pictures Because What's Past Is Past.

Taking Pictures

My Understanding Is, The Fans Are So Ravenous In Canada, They Gnaw On The Stars.

I Love The Musicality Of Words.

I Existed Before Star Trek. I Started In Live Television. I Was There When The Cameras Were As Big As A Table, Had Internal Fans That Were Whirring And Tubes That, Because Of The Heat, Had To Come Right Up To Our Face For A Close-up. Now, We Are Talking About Green Screen And Putting Us In Locations That We'll Never Visit. What Has Happened To Us Is A Miracle, And The Miracle Is Our Inventiveness. The Tragedy Of Our Lives Is Also Our Inventiveness.

I've Got Rock 'n' Roll In My Blood.

My Plan Has Always Been To Return To Broadway Every 50 Years.

I've Never Not Appeared In Front Of A Live Audience For Any Longer Period Than A Month Or Two.

When I Was Out For The Christmas Holidays In School, I Would Go Skiing Up To The Mountains And There They Had Santa On A Sled. Pulled By Horses And Other Reindeer, It Was A Very, Very Picturesque Time And That Struck Me Very Emphatically Then And Has Remained With Me All This Time.

I'm Anxious To Make Another Film.

I Want To Discover A Truth For Myself That Is Really True. Whether It's A Piece Of Scientific Knowledge, Or A Philosophical Truth.

Never Buy Anything That Eats While You Sleep.

I Am Curious About Many Things, And Find The World Around Me, And The People And Objects And Things In It, Equally Fascinating. There Is A Great Deal Of That Awe And Wonder In Me.

I Can't Stand The Gossip Of Celebrities' Lives, All The Time! Every Minute!

I Didn't Want To Do The Sitcom Thing, But I Didn't Know What Else To Do.

My Dad Died Of A Stroke.

Remember - You Can't Beam Through A Force Field. So, Don't Try It.

My Dad Was Good With Actions.

I See People Putting Text Messages On The Phone Or Computer And I Think, 'why Don't You Just Call?'

This Is My Saddest Story: In Grade School, They Would Have Us Open Our Valentine's Cards And Read Them Out Loud. I Always Sent Cards To Myself Because Nobody Else Did.

You And I And Everybody In Show Business And The Entertainment Industry Fly By The Seat Of Our Pants. We Don't Know Quite What Is Going To Happen.

How Do I Stay So Healthy And Boyishly Handsome? It's Simple. I Drink The Blood Of Young Runaways.

I Did A Movie In Esperanto.

A Pretty Girl Is Certainly Comparable To A Good Horse.

The Idea Of Being A Professional Actor Never Occurred To Anybody, Including Myself, For A Long Time.

I'm So Not Ready To Die. It Petrifies Me. I Go Alone. I Go To A Place I Don't Know. It Might Be Painful. It Might Be The End. My Thought Is That It Is The End. I Become Nameless, And I Spent A Lifetime Being Known.

So Many Dot-com Companies Were Formulated On Air.

So Bitcoin Is Cyber Snob Currency.

Memories Were The Markers Of The Journey Through Life. It Was Necessary To Know Where You Had Come From. Only Then Could You Know Where You Were Going.

Heroes, Classical Heroes Have The Look Of Eagles, Too. They're Looking Beyond The Immediate Problem And Into The Future.

The Good Life Is One That's Artistically Made.

I'm Looking For The Perfect Paintball Movie.

Stop And Smell The Garlic! That's All You Have To Do.

Oh, For God's Sake... Get A Life, Will You?

I Have Had Mystical Experiences With Horses. I Felt They Were Communicating With Me In Horse Communication.

Mystical Experiences

Everyone Knows Everything About All Of Us. That's Too Much Knowledge!

We Live In Grief For Having Left The Womb, For Having Left The Teat, Then School, Then Home. In My Case, It Was Leaving Marriages, And The Death Of My Wife.

I Guess The Disc Jockey Thought I Was Trying To Sing Or Something So ... They Had Fun With It. But The Reality Was That It Was Something, There Was A Concept Behind It.

The More Powerful The Villain Is The More Powerful The Hero.

You Cannot Begin To Imagine The Shock I Had When I Came Down On The Floor For The First Time. First Of All, There's This Whole Thing About Playing Sitcom Comedy. I Didn't Want To Do The Sitcom Thing, But I Didn't Know What Else To Do. I Went Slowly. We Went Through The Week Of Rehearsal, Then We Got On The Floor With The Cameras, Which I'm Used To Because Of My Experience In The Old Days. Then Came Camera Day, With An Audience, And It Was Stunning, Enthralling, Exciting And Chaotic. I Had Never Experienced Anything Like That Before, As An Actor. I Was Part Minstrel, Part Actor.

Sci-fi Films Are The Epic Films Of The Day Because We Can No Longer Put 10,000 Extras In The Scene - But We Can Draw Thousands Of Aliens With Computers.

A Series Is Filled With Compromises.

A Sense Of The Unknown Has Always Lured Mankind And The Greatest Of The Unknowns Of Today Is Outer Space. The Terrors, The Joys And The Sense Of Accomplishment Are Epitomized In The Space Program.

The Great Mystery Of Our Consciousness Is Beyond Our Grasp.

Captain Kirk Has Been A Source Of Pleasure And Income For A Long Time.

I'm Not Out To Convince Anybody Of Anything.

My Site Has The Whole Thing - Blogs, Information, Video Interviews.

I Also Derive A Great Deal Of Pleasure From Horses And Dogs... The Ocean... And Love.

I Don't Think Of Myself As Being Tied.

Every Piece Of Entertainment Is Made With The Idea That 'this Is Going To Be Terrific' And 'this Is The Best Thing I've Ever Done' And Then It Hits The Public And Then The Public Tells You Whether It's Good Or Bad.

I Love Technology. Matches, To Light A Fire Is Really High Tech. The Wheel Is Really One Of The Great Inventions Of All Time. Other Than That I Am An Ignoramus About Technology. I Once Looked For The 'on' Button On The Computer And Came To Find Out It Was On The Back. Then I Thought, Anyone Who Would Put The 'on' Switch On The Back, Where You Can't Find It, Doesn't Do Any Good For My Psyche. The One Time I Did Get The Computer On, I Couldn't Turn The Damn Thing Off!

The Basic Quality That Any Great Story Must Have Is A Story That Illustrates The Human Condition.

Human Condition

There Were Many Times When I Kept Silent About Being Jewish As I Got Older, When Jewish Jokes Were Told.

I Love Living In Los Angeles.

I Love To Go To A Movie, Get A Diet Coke And A Barrel Of Popcorn, And Sit There With My Kids And Watch A Film.

Although I'm A Business Major Out Of Mcgill University, I Know Nothing... But Then I Found Out Much Later In Life, Nobody Knows Anything.

Yeah, I Do Stand-up, My Own Type Of Stand-up.

I Never Watched 'star Trek.'

I Think You Die The Way You Live.

I Envy The People Who Say, 'oh, Well, I've Got My Name In The Golden Book And I'm Going To Be Entered Into The Pearly Gates.'

I Believe That When Things Happen, They Happen With A Purpose.

My Life Is My Statement And I Try To Be True To Myself And Thusly To Other People. Whatever My Failings Are, They Are Human And I Try To Perfect It Each Day.

Mythology Needs Heroes And It Needs Villains, It Needs Heroes To Fail, It Needs Heroes To Struggle.

My Beautiful Wife Is Dead. She Meant Everything To Me. Her Laughter, Her Tears And Her Joy Will Remain With Me The Rest Of My Life.

All I Know Is That I Am Constantly Intrigued By Something I'm Doing.

If There's Anything I'm Not Pompous About, It's Myself Or My Work. But I Seem To Be Able To Play It.

Nobody Could Have Imagined The Phenomenon That 'star Trek' Became. It's Still Almost Impossible To Imagine.

I Hate Flying, Flat Out Hate Its Guts.

The Possibilities That Are Suggested In Quantum Physics Tell Us That Everything That We're Looking At May Not Be In Fact There, So The Underlying Nature Of Being Is Weird.

I Proceeded To Prove Everybody Right As To How Bad An Economics Student I Was By Failing As An Assistant Manager In Every Theatre I Went To That Hired Me, Both As An Assistant Manager And As An Actor. I Lost Money And Tickets, And I Couldn't Keep Track Of Anything. So Eventually They Fired Me From Assistant-manager Jobs, But Kept Me On As An Actor.

My Wife And My Three Kids And My Grandchildren Are My Life, But My Horses And My Dogs Are Everything Else.

I've Never Been Without A Dog. I've Made Trips Across The Country With A Dog. I've Been In That Angst Of Loneliness, Where You're Really Alone In The Universe, Except For The Dog.

The Political Scene Is Already So Turgid, It Doesn't Need More Of That From Me.

I've Been In A Multimedia Extravaganza For 50 Years And It's Gone By So Quickly That It's Unimaginable. And It's Also A Major Part Of My Life That Has Gone By.

Conquest Is Easy. Control Is Not.

I've Discovered That The More Freedom I Have To Be Creative, The More Creative I Become.

I Know Very Little About The Viral, Electronic World, But I Use Twitter To Communicate Not Only Information That I Think Some Of The Fans Want To Hear About But Also Ideas.

These People Who Come To Comic-con And Dress Up - All Across The Country, The Rest Of The Population Who Doesn't Understand Are Scoffing At Them.

I'm Interested In Man's March Into The Unknown But To Vomit In Space Is Not My Idea Of A Good Time. Neither Is A Fiery Crash With The Vomit Hovering Over Me.

What Part Of Me Was Born With The Courage To Stand In Front Of Strangers And Risk Rejection?

Marriage Is A Reflection Of Your Life In General: How You Treat People, How You Argue, How Secure You Are In Your Own Thoughts. How Vehemently Do You Argue Your Point Of View? With What Disdain Do You View The Other's Point Of View?

I Love To Evoke The Bones And Meat And Thoughts Of Characters.

If You Read My Books, Especially The Star Trek Books And The Quest For Tomorrow Books, You'll See In Them The Core Theme Of The Basic Humanistic Questions That Star Trek Asked.

I Had Been In A Shakespeare Company For Three Years And Done A Lot Of Shakespeare. That Was Fun. That Was Interesting.

Writing An Acceptance Speech Gives You The Expectation Of Winning, And You Are Therefore Devastated Or Hurt If You Didn't Win.

I Think The Acting Satisfies The Need And Desire For Approval.

Ads Need To Be Little Pieces Of Entertainment.

Everybody Has Their 15 Minutes, And Those 15 Minutes Should Be Spent In A Private Limo And A Private Plane. It's The Ultimate.

You Have To Create Your Life. You Have To Carve It, Like A Sculpture.

What Have I Done? I've Blundered My Way Through Life. So I Have My Picture On The Wall. The Minute I Die, That Picture Will Start To Yellow And Fade And Eventually Be Gone. Blown In The Wind And Become Part Of The Molecular Structure Of Something Else. These Things We See As "success," They're Non-accomplishments.

Here's Something Pompous - You Take Your Day And Artistically Create It, So Every Moment Has An Artistic Flavor.

Christmas Is Fun Anyway. It's A Myth Organized Over The Years And Gained Different Mythological Qualities As The Years Go By.

The Conundrum Of Free Will And Destiny Has Always Kept Me Dangling.

When I'm Interviewing Somebody I Don't Work From Prepared Questions.

But If You Want To Know The Truth, The Weirdest Thing That Has Happened Has Been My Discovery That People Who Attend The Conventions Are Filled With Love.

Things People Say Strike Me As Amusing, And I Am Prone To Saying Out Loud What Everybody's Thinking.

I'm Coming Little Animal!.

The Mysteriousness And Mystique Of Space Is Such, That Science Fiction Attempts To Tantalize You By Telling You A Story That Could Possibly Be Out There And That's The Appeal Of Science Fiction.

Has It Ever Occurred To You That How We Deal With Death Is At Least As Important As How We Deal With Life?

I'm Surfing The Giant Life Wave.

I Was Built For The Long Run, Not For The Short Dash, I Guess.

People Have An Affinity Towards Things, And You Don't Know Where It Comes From. Mozart Wrote A Symphony When He Was Four, So It's Said; The Theory Is Maybe Because His Father Was A Conductor, It Happened In Vitro, And He Heard The Music Before He Was Born, And By The Age Of Four He Knew How To Write Music.

A Tree You Pass By Every Day Is Just A Tree. If You Are To Closely Examine What A Tree Has And The Life A Tree Has, Even The Smallest Thing Can Withstand A Curiosity, And You Can Examine Whole Worlds.

We're All Embers From The Same Fire. Our Ember Winks Out, We're Ashes, We Go Back To The Fire. I Like That Image. There Has To Be A Unifying Theory. I Think There Is A Continuity Of Some Kind, That My Love For My Wife Will Go On Past The Death Of My Body. Nature Is Perfect.

I Did Some Professional Radio Acting As A Teenager, And I Essentially Put Myself Through College With Radio Acting In Montreal. When I Graduated, I Got Jobs In Professional Theatres, Repertory, And Stock Theatres In Canada For A Couple Of Years. And Then I Went To Stratford, Ontario, Where I Spent Three Years With A Shakespeare Company. We Took A Classical Play From Stratford To New York City, And I Got Some Good Notices There And Essentially Stayed And Did Live Television. And That Brings You To The Beginning Of Filming.

Most People, Including Myself, Keep Repeating The Same Mistakes.

I've Been Approached To Do Some Things With Astronauts And The Preparation That Astronauts Go Through.

Somewhere In University, I Realized That I Hadn't Been To Classes In Months, And I'd Get Tired To The Point Of Narcolepsy Doing Anything Other Than Some Form Of Performing, Directing, Writing, Or Acting.

The Truth Can't Be Hidden For Long.

Gradually The Live Tv Scene Simmered Out, Replaced By Film, And That Took Place In L.a. So Many Actors Left New York.

The Pictures Remind You Of Something That Can Never Be Recaptured, The Time Is Gone, The Only Thing You Know Is The Present. That's All That's Knowable And Even The Present Isn't Knowable. The Present Becomes The Past... So You Really Don't Know Anything.

What Is Down Will Go Up. At The Same Time, You Have To Be Prepared For What Is Up To Go Down.

Is There A God? There Is, But We Don't Know Where. Or Who. And, Indeed, Why.

The Essence Of Paint Ball Is The Fact That When You Get Hit By A Ball Full Of Paint, It Hurts Just Enough To Say, 'ow, I Gotta Get Out Of The Way,' But Not Enough To Say, 'i Quit.'

Divorce Is Probably As Painful As Death.

Within Weeks Of Our Premiere, It Became Obvious That Leonard [nimoy] And The Character Of Spock Were Becoming Something Of A National Phenomenon. ... And To Be Unflatteringly Frank, It Bugged Me. ... [then, Gene Roddenberry] Said To Me The Wisest Thing He Could Possibly Have Uttered. He Said, `don't Ever Fear Having Good And Popular People Around You, Because They Can Only Enhance Your Own Performance. The More You Can Play To These People, The Better The Show.'

I Often Conduct Interviews In My Truck.

My Mother Was An Exuberant, Silly Lady.

There's Too Many People In The World.

Careers Are Here And They're Gone. No Matter How Great We Think We Are, We're Nothing But The Temples Of Ozymandias-we're Ruins In The Making.

Is This Year Over Yet? Too Many People Are Passing Away. Rest In Peace, George Michael.

I Sometimes Find That In Interviews You Learn More About Yourself Than The Person Learned About You.

When I Did The Film Generations, In Which The Character Died, I Felt Like A Guest For The First Time. That Made Me Very Sad.

Acting Is Easier - Writing Is More Creative. The Lazy Man Vies With The Industrious.

Divorce Is Simply Modern Society's Version Of Medieval Torture. Except It Lasts Longer And Leaves Deeper Scars. A Divorce Releases The Most Primitive Emotions; The Ugliest, Raw Feelings. Emotionally Wounded People Do Their Best To Inflict Pain Upon The Other Party, But Rather Than Using Claws They Use Divorce Lawyers.

I Had A Major In Business, And I Graduated With A Business Degree, But I Was Perhaps The Worst Student To Graduate From That Program.

It's Easy To Say No, I'm Not Going To Do That. I'm Not Leaving The House.

You Have To Continuously Fail. You Fail At Something, Then You Get Over It, Then You Fail Some More. And After You Fail, There's Always Something New There. And That Something New Can Be Really Interesting.

I'm A Performer, Comedian, Entertainer, Writer And Director.

The Name Shatner Is Austrian And Partly Germanic, And There's Germanic Reticence And Silence Perhaps, But There Is Passion Underneath.

I Always Thought That The Spine Of A Character Was Awe And Wonder.

No, I Don't Regret Anything At This Point. That May Change On The Next Phone Call, But At The Moment I Don't Regret Anything.

Fate Gives You The Finger And You Accept.

There's A Joy And A Pain About Directing Where The Dreams You Have Are Becoming Concrete But The Attention To Detail, The Need For Time Is Such That It's Overwhelming At Times, And The Stream Of Responsibility.

All In All, Kirk's Character Is Something I Am Very Proud Of.

I Believe In Taking What Happens As Inevitable.

If We Can Clean Up Our World, I'll Bet You We Can Achieve Warp Drive.

Success Should Always Be Just Beyond Your Grasp.

My Kids Say If There's Any Family Dinner That Doesn't Result In Somebody Crying, It's Not A Good Dinner. They Cry Because It Helps Relieve Them Of A Guilt Or Some Onerous Emotional Burden. It's Like A Family Tradition.

Avatar Is A Watershed Movie. We'll Always Refer To Lawrence Of Arabia In The Same Way. We'll Always Look At Avatar And Say, "that's About As Good As It Gets." It's An Enormous Advance, In Every Way, Shape And Form, Of Movie Making.

Good As It Gets

In My Proudest Moments, I Think I Had A Real Hand In The Creative Force Of Making 'star Trek.' But Most Of The Time, I Don't Think About It.

I Love The Concept Of Togetherness And The Entwinement Of Marriage.

When I Direct And Have To Look At Filmed Scenes Of Myself, I Suck.

A Stage Actor Has To Be 10% Aware Of The Audience As He's Performing.

I Don't Twitter. I Can't Even Remember My Password Name. I Have Problems With Electronics, So What I've Done Is Hire A Young Man Out Of College, Whose Very Fingers Are The Extension Of Computer Keys, And He Twitters. He Does The Mechanics, But I Very Carefully Modulate What Is Said And Have Used Twitter To Publicize Stuff, Have Conversations And Instigate Competition.

A Director Is A Choreographer, Both Politically And Creatively.

I Think Of Doing A Series As Very Hard Work. But Then I've Talked To Coal Miners, And That's Really Hard Work.

I Think Making A Good Film Shot Is Joyful.

I Have Been Accused Of Never Saying No.

There's An Ecstasy About Doing Something Really Good On Film: The Composition Of A Shot, The Drama Within The Shot, The Texture... It's Palpable.

Spencer Tracy Was A Man Who Did Very Much What I Do On A Set, And That Is, He Comes Down And He Does His Job, And Then He Goes Back To His Dressing Room.

Getting That Audience Approval Is Always A Question Mark, And It's Always That Flag That Flutters In Front Of You.

I Got On A Horse When I Was About 12 Years Of Age, And Started Galloping Around. My Mother Came Up Said "where Did You Learn To Ride A Horse?" I Said "this Is The First Time I've Ever Been On A Horse" I Just Knew, I Just Felt The Horse.

A True Pilot Must Of Necessity Pay Attention To The Seasons, The Heavens, The Stars, The Winds, And Everything Proper To The Craft If He Is Really To Rule A Ship.

Your Cadence Is Your Music.

I Had Been In A Shakespeare Company For Three Years And Done A Lot Of Shakespeare. That Was Fun. That Was Interesting. It Was A Lot Of Work - Anything Other Than Shakespeare Was Less Work. I Had A Lot Of Interesting Roles, But I Don't Point To Them And Say, "that Was More Interesting Than That," Because I Don't Know What The Criteria Are.

And That Works For Me. So That If This Is It, You Better Take It At Its Right Proportion. That There Are Serious Things, But Most Things Are Temporal And Ephemeral, And You Should Cultivate That Attitude. That Joy And Love And All The Verities Are What Counts. So I Try Not To Take Too Many Things Seriously, And If I Find Myself Caught Up In The Seriousness Of The Moment, Within A Period Of Time, I'm Able To Cajole Myself Out Of It.

I Played Comedies And Dramas.

I'm Not Going To Have A Tombstone. I'm Going To Be Tossed In The Air. Ashes, Tossed Like A Salad.

You Can't Do Anything About The Past. And You Don't Know What The Future Is.

I Enjoyed Reading All The Classic Authors Like Isaac Asimov And Bradbury.

I've Come To The Conclusion That Athletes, When They Say They Miss The Crowd, Are Not Missing The Sound Of The Crowd. What They're Missing Is The Feeling Inside That Makes The Crowd Roar. It's Not The Roar Of The Crowd, It's The Silence Inside.

Even One Word, Or Certainly One Sentence, Should Be Able To Describe The Basic Characteristic That The Scene Has, Or The Character Has, Or The Story Has. And Then You Begin To Detail That One Spine, And You Have Offshoots From That Spine, And It Becomes More And More Complex, But All Of It Stems From That One-word, One-line Theme, Which Can Give The Character, The Scene, Or The Play Its Uniqueness.

Pain And Guilt Can't Be Taken Away With The Wave Of A Magic Wand. They're The Things We Carry With Us, The Things That Make Us Who We Are. If We Lose Them, We Lose Ourselves. I Don't Want My Pain Taken Away! I Need My Pain!

And I Enjoyed The Celebrity And The Creativity That Was Involved In Star Trek.

The Ability To Breathe The Air And Drink The Water Will Be What The Wars Will Be About From Here On In. And It's Coming With Alarming Rapidity.

My Mother Was Born In The City, My Dad Was An Immigrant. Probably From Germany. Could Have Been Austria, Could Have Been Poland. The Borders Were Changing. My Dad Brought Over A Large Family Of Shatners When He Was Very Young. Scraped Together The Money, Got 11 Brothers And Sisters A Passage On The Boat. There's A Lot Of Shatners In Montreal.

My Boy, That Was A Tv Show. I Used A Stunt Double. I Always Use A Stunt Double. Except In Love Scenes. I Insist On Doing Those Myself.

Exercise? A Jew Doesn't Exercise.

If You Make A Fool Of Yourself, You Can Do It With Dignity, Without Taking Your Pants Down. And If You Do Take Your Pants Down, You Can Still Do It With Dignity.

Let Women Figure Out Why They Won't Sleep With You. Don't Do Their Work For Them.

Montreal Is A Very Cosmopolitan, Sophisticated, Erudite, Educated, Glorious City Today. But It Wasn't Quite That Way When I Was Growing Up There. There Was A Lot Of Anti-semitism. And I Had To Deal With That In An Area Of The City That Had Very Few Jews.

You Need To Be Silly To Be Funny.

My Name Is William Shatner, And I Am Canadian!

One Of The Advantages Of Being A Captain Is Being Able To Ask For Advice Without Necessarily Having To Take It.

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