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It's Like Painting The Same Blank Canvas Over And Over And Over And Over And Over. Once The Concept Is Known, You Don't Need To See Two. And That Was In The Back Of My Head, That I Was Really Done Artistically With What I Had Created Or Pastiched.

-Steve Martin

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It's Like Painting The

Steve Martin

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It's Like Painting The Same Blank Canvas Over And Over And Over And Over And Over. Once The Concept Is Known, You Don't Need To See Two. And That Was In The Back Of My Head, That I Was Really Done Artistically With What I Had Created Or Pastiched.

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College Totally Changed My Life. It Changed What I Believe And What I Think About Everything. I Majored In Philosophy.

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...the Divided World Of Aspen, Where Locals With A Sense Of Entitlement Were Pitted Against Developers With A Sense Of Condominiums.

I Take Editing Seriously. It's A Joy To Edit. I Always Hand A Manuscript To Several Editors And Can't Wait To Get Back Their Notes And See What They've Said. I Don't Criticize Myself For Making Blunders Here And There, Because It's Just Natural. You Write In Chunks, And You May Not Remember That That Sentence You Wrote Yesterday Had The Same Word Repeated Three Times. I Do Enjoy That. I Love The Feeling Of Repairing. Repairing Is Really Nice.

Performing Music Is A Way To Do Comedy, But Without The Obligation To Do A Solid Hour, Hour And Half Of A Standup. I Could Intersperse It With Music, So It Became A Really Good Format For Me.

I Believe The United States Should Allow All Foreigners In This Country, Provided They Can Speak Our Native Language... Apache.

Native Language

You Know That Look That Women Get When They Want To Have Sex? Me Neither.

I've Put An Umbrella In My Mouth And Opened It. I Sat In A Lemon-meringue Pie. I've Done Terrible Things To My Dog With A Fork.

...a Young Man, Jamaican, Perhaps, His Head Circled In A Scarf With Sunbleached Dreadlocks On Piled On Top, Looking Like A Plate Of Soft-shell Crabs.

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I Try Not To Think About Legacy Because It Is All folly. If You Study History, Even Recent History, You'll Find Many People Who Were Quite Significant In Their Time But Are Completely Forgotten.

You Can't Make Something Beautiful By Trying To Make Something Beautiful. Something Becomes Beautiful In The Process Of Trying To Be Something Else.

In My Opening Seconds, I Would Say, "it's Great To Be Here," Then Move To Several Other Spots On The Stage And Say, "no, It's Great To Be Here!" I Would Move Again: "no, It's Great To Be Here!

As A Human Being On Earth, You Can't Imagine Friendship Not Being Important In Some Other Solar System Or Some Other Planet, Or Some Other Context Of Beings That Are Conscious. We Even See It In Animals. It Is Important For People On Earth To Reach Out Or Reach Into Someone.

A Remarkable Memoir That's Packed With Anecdotes, Advice And Humor, All While Maintaining A High Level Of Dignity And Self-awareness.

Ah, Yes. I Remember My First Beer.

Or Is It That I Think Too Much?

So, While Fitting In, She Was Like A Wicked Detail Standing Out Against A Placid Background.

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With Comedy, You Have No Place To Go But More Comedy, So You're Never Off The Hook.

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Throughout My Whole Life, As A Performer, I've Never Played With A Band. I've Always Played Alone, So I Was Never Required To Stay In Rhythm Or Anything. So It Was A Real Different Experience For Me To Start Playing With A Band. There Were So Many Basic Things For Me To Learn.

Different Experiences

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I Took Literally Everything I Knew How To Do On Stage With Me, Which Was Juggling, Magic And Banjo And My Little Comedy Routines.

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I Just Believe That The Interesting Time In A Career Is Pre-success, What Shaped Things, How Did You Get To This Point.

I've Always Believed That There Are Funny People Everywhere, But They're Just Not Comedians. In Fact, Some Of My Best Comedic Inspirations Were Not Professional Entertainers.

No Art Comes From The Conscious Mind.

In A Strange Way, I Don't Have A Job, So I Have A Lot Of Time On My Hands. When I Do Work, It Might Be Very Concentrated, And It Might Be Months Where You're Not Really Doing Anything Except Maybe Playing The Banjo Or Writing Something. You Know, There's A Lot Of Time In The Day If You're Not Working 9 To 5.

Be Undeniably Good. When People Ask Me How Do You Make It In Show Business Or Whatever, What I Always Tell Them & Nobody Ever Takes Note Of It 'cause It's Not The Answer They Wanted To Hear-what They Want To Hear Is Here's How You Get An Agent, Here's How You Write A Script, Here's How You Do This-but I Always Say, “be So Good They Can't Ignore You.” If Somebody's Thinking, “how Can I Be Really Good?” People Are Going To Come To You. It's Much Easier Doing It That Way Than Going To Cocktail Parties.

I'm Always Looking For Something To Engage My Imagination And Take Me On A Little Mental Voyage. I Just Want A New Topic In My Life.

I've Been Writing For A Long Time, Since The Late '60s. But It Hasn't Been In The Same Form. I Used To Write Scripts For Television. I Wrote For My Comedy Act. Then I Wrote Screenplays, And Then I Started Writing New Yorker Essays, And Then I Started Writing Plays. I Didn't Start Writing Prose, Really, Until The New Yorker Essays, But They Were Comic. I Didn't Start Writing Prose, Really, Until The '90s. In My Head, There Was A Link Between Everything. One Thing Led To Another.

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If He Thinks He Would Harm Mirabelle, He Would Back Away. But He Does Not Yet Understand When And How People Are Hurt. He Doesn't Understand The Subtleties Of Slights And Pains, That It Is Not The Big Events That Hurt The Most But Rather The Smallest Questionable Shift In Tone At The End Of A Spoken Word That Can Plow Most Deeply Into The Heart.

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Introductions Are Hard To Come By When Your Natural State Is Shyness

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There Is One Thing I Would Break Up Over, And That Is If She Caught Me With Another Woman. I Won't Stand For That.

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Awards Mean Nothing To Comedians. What Matters Is The Audience, How You're Doing - Artistically, For The Most Part - At That Moment.

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Deeply Funny Musings And Adventures Elevate Paul Rudnick To The Highest Level Of American Comedy Writing.

Before You Criticize A Man, Walk A Mile In His Shoes. That Way, When You Do Criticize Him, You'll Be A Mile Away And Have His Shoes.

Any Type Of Humor Can Be Transferred To The Screen, As Long As There's Clarity. The Audience Wants To Know Just What They're Supposed To Be Feeling, When They're Supposed To Laugh.

When I First Started Doing My Stand-up Act, I Played The Banjo, Did Comedy, Magic Tricks, Juggled, Read Poetry. I Stuck It All In. I Didn't Know You Were Supposed To Just Stand Up And Tell Jokes. Essentially, That's What My Act Became: Those Five Elements - Except I Dropped The Poetry.

It's Horrible For Someone To Listen To Someone Learning Any Instrument - When I Was First Learning The Banjo, I Used To Have To Go Out And Sit In The Car, And Even In The Summertime I'd Have To Roll Up The Windows. Because You Just Couldn't Practice A Banjo Or A Fiddle With Other People Around. Unless They're Being Paid.

They Want Me On The Television Shows Now Because I Did So Well On Celebrity Assholes.

I Just Respected Comedians Whether They Were Or They Weren't, From, You Know, New Or Old.

I Choose A Project Based On Whether It Feels Worthwhile Working On When It Comes To Me. But Secondly I Choose It If It Sounds Like Fun. Projects Are Determined By Just How They Strike Me At The Moment, As They Have Done Throughout My Whole Life.

First The Doctor Told Me The Good News: I Was Going To Have A Disease Named After Me.

When I Was In College, I Was Debating To Try My Hand At Show Business, Or To Become A Professor. I Just Thought Of The Risk Of Not Going Into Show Business And Always Wondering If I Would've Had A Chance. Because That's Where My Real Heart Was.

I Have No Fear, No Fear At All. I Wake Up, And I Have No Fear. I Go To Bed Without Fear. Fear, Fear, Fear, Fear. Yes, 'fear' Is A Word That Is Not In My Vocabulary.

He Gave Her His Phone Number, In A Peculiar Reversal Of Dating Procedure. She Might Have Considered Kissing Him, Even After The Horrible First Date, But He Just Didn’t Seem To Know What To Do. However, Jeremy Does Have One Outstanding Quality. He Likes Her. And This Quality In A Person Makes Them Infinitely Interesting To The Person Who Is Being Liked.

I'm The Leader Of The Platoon And I Run Gambling And Lotteries, Dances And I Sell Beer Illegally. I'm A Con Man And I'm Thoroughly Lovable.

She Tried To Get Even With Him Through Psychological Warfare But Couldn't, Because He Didn't Care.

Love Is A Promise Delivered Already Broken.

It's Spooky To Look At Yourself, Because You Are Never Quite What You Think You Are. And You Are Never As Good Looking As The Person You Are Acting With, Or Something Like That. So I Learned To Stay Away From It Because It Was Giving Me More Negative Feelings Than Positive Ones.

Reviews For Someone Like Me Come In Three Packages. One Is Justifiable Praise, The Second Is Justifiable Criticism, And The Third Is, "this Is Only Published Because He's A Celebrity."

As A School Board We Felt It's An Unfair Expense To Families. The Lawsuit Has A Certain Logic To It - If You Have Free Public Education, You Can't Put These Things On Top Of It. It Defeats The Purpose.

When People Ask Me, ‘how Do You Make It In Show Business,’ Or Whatever, What I Always Tell Them — And Nobody Ever Takes Note Of It ‘cuz It’s Not The Answer They Wanted To Hear…but I Always Say, ‘be So Good They Can’t Ignore You.’

Romance Takes Place When You First Fall In Love. It Stirs All Emotions And You Can Manipulate And Be Manipulated.

Falling In Love

His View Of The World Is One That Keeps His Blood Pressure Low, Sweeping The Cholesterol From His Relaxed, Freeway-sized Arteries. Everyone Knows He Is Going To Live Till Age Ninety, Although The Question That Goes Begging Is, “for What?

I'm Not Vegas. Places I Play Usually Cost Like $3 To Get In, You Know, And People Are Going: Gee, I've Got $3, I Think I'll Throw It Away.

What I Mean Is That None Of My Talents Had A - What's That Great Word - Rubric. A Singer, An Actor, A Dancer - There Was Nothing I Could Really Say I Was. The Writing Came Much Later. And, Actually, Thank God, Because If I Had Said I'm A Singer, I Would Really Have Just Had One Thing To Do.

I Think There Are People Out There Writing Original Bluegrass Songs, But It's Hard To Get Them Out On The Air.

I Couldn't See His Face, Because The Light Came In From Behind Him And He Was In Shadow, And He Said, "i Am Picasso." And I Said, "well, So What?

Lots Of Women Are Getting Involved. They're Not Satisfied Just Being Passengers Anymore.

You Know, There's A Moment When You're Famous When It's Unbearable To Go Out Because You're Too Famous. And Then There's A Moment When You're Famous Just Right.

Dinosaurs Did Not Walk With Humans. The Evolutionary Record Says Different. They Gambled.

Always Do Business As If The Person You're Doing Business With Is Trying To Screw You, Because He Probably Is. And If He's Not, You Can Be Pleasantly Surprised.

She Looked Down Again And I Was Stymied. I Sat. Oh, This Was Enough To Make Me Love Her, Because I Was Right With Her, Understanding Every Second And Longing To Step In. I Didn’t Even Need To Know The Specific That Was Troubling Her, Because To Me Her Halting Voice Easily Stood For The General Woe That Hangs In The Air, Even On Life’s Happiest Days.

Lacy Was Just As Happy Alone As With Company. When She Was Alone, She Was Potential; With Others She Was Realized.

I Just Downloaded Eleven Hundred Books Onto My Kindle, And Now I Can’t Lift It.

I Was Always Very Shy But As I Get Older I Think, What Am I Being Shy For? You Just Grow Weary Of Your Own Hang-ups.

It's Very Hard Sometimes When You Can't Crack Something Or Can't Solve Something And You Keep Trying And Trying And You Know It's Falling A Little Bit Short. That's Very Hard, But Then When You Finally Do It, It's Very Rewarding And The Process Is Good Too, I Like Working With People This Way.

We've Taken What Was Just Once A Racetrack And Made It A Multifaceted Gaming Destination For The Entire Region.

... You're Nuts But You're Welcome Here.

I've Got To Keep Breathing. It'll Be My Worst Business Mistake If I Don't.

Somewhere In The World Is...the World's Worst Doctor And He Could Be Yours.

I Started A Grease Fire At Mcdonald's - Threw A Match In The Cook's Hair.

Relationships End, But They Don't End Your Life.

Bad Relationship

Relationships Ending

Failed Relationship

You Want To Be A Bit Compulsive In Your Art Or Craft Or Whatever You Do.

It Was So Sweet Backstage, You Should Have Seen It - The Teamsters Were Helping Michael Moore Into The Trunk Of His Limo.

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The Presence Of Excessive Wealth Puts An Unnatural Spin On The Appreciation Of Art.

Why Sip From A Tea Cup, When You Can Drink From The River.

I Would Say The Three Stages Of Making A Film Are The Initial 'are We Gonna Do This,' 'how Much Will I Be Paid,' Is There A Lot Of Nights, Who's It Going To Be With? The Second Stage Of Doing A Film Is How Much Fun Your Going To Have Doing It. The Third Stage Is Was The Film A Hit?

I Used To Think A Wedding Was A Simple Affair. Boy And Girl Meet, They Fall In Love, He Buys A Ring, She Buys A Dress, They Say I Do. I Was Wrong. That's Getting Married. A Wedding Is An Entirely Different Proposition.

Falling In Love

Whether I'm Involved In Creating Something Or Not, It's A Personal Issue Of Do I Respect It. But You Can Only Know That Five Or Ten Years Later.

There's A Lot Of Thought In Art. People Get To Talk About Important Things. There's A Lot Of Sex, You Know, In Art. There's A Lot Of Naked Women And Men, And There's Intrigue, There's Fakery. It's A Real Microcosm Of The Larger World.

If You're Studying Geology, Which Is All Facts, As Soon As You Get Out Of School You Forget It All, But Philosophy You Remember Just Enough To Screw You Up For The Rest Of Your Life.

Bad Psychoanalysis Would Say I Enjoyed Pleasing People, Working Really Hard And Pleasing People, Which Is Probably Related To My Father In Some Way. But I Really Liked Working Hard. When I Worked At Disneyland, I'd Do 12 Hours Straight And Go Home Thrilled.

Thankfully, Persistence Is A Great Substitute For Talent.

I Never Had A Movie That I Wanted To Do Turned Down In My Whole Life. I Always Write The Script First So It Speaks For Itself.

A Friend Of Mine Once Asked How To Make It In Show Business And I Said "be So Good That They Can't Ignore You." She Thought I Was Being Flip But It's True. The Challenge Is Trying To Live Up To The Opportunities Given Me.

I Happened To Take A Photo, And There Was My Wife, My Dog And My Banjo, All In The Same Shot - And I Thought, "oh, That's Like A Family Portrait Right There."

I Would Assign Every Lie A Color: Yellow When They Were Innocent, Pale Blue When They Sailed Over You Like The Sky, Red Because I Knew They Drew Blood. And Then There Was The Black Lie. That's The Worst Of All. A Black Lie Was When I Told You The Truth.

I Really Enjoy The Social Aspects Of Music As Much As Anything.

I Love Animated Films When They Are Good, Because They Do Bring A Lot Of Emotion And Heart That's Very Difficult To Get In A Live Action Film.

I Thought 'borat' Was A Breakthrough Comedy, Because It Was Really Funny. It Wasn't Some Studio-produced Script With 14 Writers.

The Teen Years Are Extremely Serious And Everything Matters And Every Insult Really Hurts. I Know There Are Cliques And Bullying. And You Don't Yet understand That It Will All Go Away.

I Believe You Should Place A Woman On A Pedestal: High Enough So You Can Look Up Her Dress.

I Really Enjoy Finding The Right Word, Creating A Good, Flowing Sentence. I Enjoy The Rhythm Of The Words.

The Only Thing That Bothers Me Is If I'm In A Restaurant And I'm Eating And Someone Says, 'hey, Mind If I Smoke?' I Always Say, 'no. Mind If I Fart?

People Come Up To Me And Say "steve, What Is Film Editing?" And I Say "how Should I Know? You're The Director.

So She Viewed Time Spent In The Land Of The Normal As An Investigation Into The World Of Marriage-worthy Men, Even If She Was Unsure About Her Own Interest In Marriage. There Must Be One Solid Citizen Who Also Had A Spark Of Life, A Sense Of Humor And Adventure.

Some People Have A Way With Words, And Other People...oh, Uh, Not Have Way.

I Wish I Could Do A Lot Of Things Different. I'm Not Going To Tell You What They Are, But If I Had A List Of All My Films Right Now, I'd Go, 'okay, I'll Cross That One Out And Cross That One Out And Cross That One Out And Cross That One Out.' Really. But I've Made Over 40 Films. How Can I Not Have Some Losers In There?

I Can Understand The Drug Thing. So They Feel That It's More Important To Take The Drugs Than To Do A Good Show For The People.

The Overhead Lights Reflect In The Glass Countertop And Mingle In The Gray And Black Of The Gloves, Resulting In A Mother-of-pearl Swirl That Sometimes Sends Mirabelle Into A Shallow Hypnotic Dream.

I'm Trying To Think Of Other Ones. Oh, Yeah, I'd Say - Somebody Would Buy Something And We'd Say, And Because You Are Our Hundredth Customer Today, You Get A Free Paperback.

All I've Ever Wanted Was An Honest Week's Pay For An Honest Day's Work.

I Can Juggle. I Started Juggling As A Kid. And When I Worked At Disneyland, I Knew A Juggler There Named Christopher Faire, And He Taught Me How To Juggle. I Used It In My Comedy Act For A While.

There Are Some People That Will Not Pick Up A Phone And Call You, But If You Knock On A Door And Talk To Them, They'll Talk Back To You.

Despite A Lack Of Natural Ability, I Did Have The One Element Necessary To All Early Creativity: Naïveté, That Fabulous Quality That Keeps You From Knowing Just How Unsuited You Are For What You Are About To Do.

'dirty Rotten Scoundrels' Is A Good One Because It Not Only Turned Out, I Think, To Be A Really Funny Movie But It Was Also A Delight To Shoot. We Were In The South Of France, Working With Glenne Headly And Michael Caine And Frank Oz The Director - Who Were Just Fun.

I Did Stand-up Comedy For 18 Years. Ten Of Those Years Were Spent Learning, Four Years Were Spent Refining, And Four Years Were Spent In Wild Success. I Was Seeking Comic Originality, And Fame Fell On Me As A Byproduct. The Course Was More Plodding Than Heroic.

I Really Like The Animated Film Process. It's Kind Of Like Doing A Play, Because You Can Experiment With It, Rewrite It, Screen It, Go Back, Then Work On It A Little Bit More. If The Joke Doesn't Work, You Can Fix It. It's Different From A Live Action Movie.

I Don't Think Comic Timing Is The Same As Music Timing, But I Definitely Find That I've Learned From Just Writing In General That Songs Can Be Narrative Without Having A Story.

I Would Get Records By Earl Scruggs... I Would Tune My Banjo Down And I'd Pick Out The Songs Note By Note. Learned How To Play That Way. I Persevered. There Was A Book Written By Pete Seeger, Who Showed You Some Basic Strumming And Some Basic Picking... And I Kind Of Worked Out My Own Style Of Playing.

I Ignored My Stand-up Career For Twenty-five Years, But Now, Having Finished This Memoir, I View This Time With Surprising Warmth. One Can Have, It Turns Out, An Affection For The War Years.

You Can't Really Conduct Your Life By One Or Two Phrases.

I Handed In A Script Last Year And The Studio Didn't Change One Word. The Word They Didn't Change Was On Page 87.

I Believe Entertainment Can Aspire To Be Art, And Can Become Art, But If You Set Out To Make Art You're An Idiot.

The Greatest Thing You Can Do Is Surprise Yourself.

I Love Money. I Love Everything About It. I Bought Some Pretty Good Stuff. Got Me A $300 Pair Of Socks. Got A Fur Sink. An Electric Dog Polisher. A Gasoline Powered Turtleneck Sweater. And, Of Course, I Bought Some Dumb Stuff, Too.

Anyway, Seeking Work Is A Tad Difficult Given The Poor Design Of The Streets With Their Prohibitive Curbs And Driveways That Don't Quite Line Up.

Writing Is Something I Took Up Rather Than Anything I Had An Inclination Toward. I Like Acting -delivering Someone Else's Message - But Writing Is More Of An Accomplishment.

When You're Touring And If You Go To A Party, There's Automatically A Celebrity-audience Distance. It Follows You Around, Especially When You're On The Road In Small Towns. Any Time There Is Awe, It Gets Very Difficult To Be Normal, To Be Yourself. But I'm Not Saying That That's What Made Me The Way I Am. I've Probably Always Been Distant.

Talent Is The Ability To Say Things Well, But Genius Is The Ability To, Well, Say Things.

If You Saw Her In These Moments, You Might Think She Was Collecting Her Thoughts In Order To Go Forward. But I See It Another Way: Her Mind Is Being Overwhelmed By Two Processes That Must Simultaneously Proceed At Full Steam. One Is To Deal With And Live In The Present World. The Other Is To Re-experience And Mourn Something That Happened Long Ago. It Is As Though Her Lightness Pulls Her Toward Heaven, But The Extra Gravity Around Her Keeps Her Earthbound.

The Matisse Seemed To Respond To The Decreasing Light By Increasing Its Own Wattage. Every Object In The Room Was Drained Of Color, But The Matisse Stood Firm In The De-escalating Illumination, Its Beauty Turning Functionality Inside Out, Making Itself A More Practical And Useful Presence Than Anything Else In Sight.

You Know, A Lot Of People Come To Me And They Say, "steve, How Can You Be So Fucking Funny?" There's A Secret To It, It's No Big Deal. Before I Go Out, I Put A Slice Of Bologna In Each Of My Shoes. So When I'm On Stage, I Feel Funny.

If You Feel Tired Midway Through, Give Neil Patrick Harris A Red Bull And Throw Some Sheet Music At Him.

I Was Seeking Comic Originality, And Fame Fell On Me As A Byproduct.

Through The Years, I Have Learned There Is No Harm In Charging Oneself Up With Delusions Between Moments Of Valid Inspiration.

It Eventually Appeared To Be Me, Cinematically. When I Was Writing It I Was Actually An Author, You Know, Writing A Book. ... But There Certainly Is A Difference In Energy Between A Younger Man And An Older Man.

I Just Don't Identify Myself With A Place. I Just Don't Get It. Like, Why Am I Cheering For This Town? Towns Are Good And Bad But They Don't Have Principles, Constitutions. You Wouldn't Go To War For Your Town.

I Think Probably The Most Difficult Challenge Was Just The Climb And Rise In Show Business Because I Went Through My Entire Twenties With Some Success As A Comedy Writer But Not Much As A Performer. And You Have To Be Kind Of Informed And Naive At The Same Time.

Don't Have Sex Man. It Leads To Kissing And Pretty Soon You Have To Start Talking To Them.

Always Make Room For The Unexpected In Yourself.

I Don't Think Anyone Is Ever Writing So That You Can Throw It Away. You're Always Writing It To Be Something. Later, You Decide Whether It'll Ever See The Light Of Day. But At The Moment Of Its Writing, It's Always Meant To Be Something. So, To Me, There's No Practicing; There's Only Editing And Publishing Or Not Publishing.

I've Decided To Take Up Smoking, My Doctor Said I Wasn't Getting Enough Tar.

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