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You Know, The Ancient Egyptians Had A Beautiful Belief About Death. When Their Souls Got To The Entrance To Heaven, The Guards Asked Two Questions. Their Answers Determined Whether They Were Able To Enter Or Not. 'have You Found Joy In Your Life?' 'has Your Life Brought Joy To Others?'

-Morgan Freeman

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You Know, The Ancient

Morgan Freeman

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You Know, The Ancient Egyptians Had A Beautiful Belief About Death. When Their Souls Got To The Entrance To Heaven, The Guards Asked Two Questions. Their Answers Determined Whether They Were Able To Enter Or Not. 'have You Found Joy In Your Life?' 'has Your Life Brought Joy To Others?'

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I Was Very Lucky Once I Got Started With A Career. I Happened To Get Some Really Good Parts To Play With Some Really Good People To Play With.

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I Know American Football. I Know A Little Bit About Soccer. I Know Baseball, I Know Basketball. But, Rugby Is A Foreign Language.

Well, Here’s A Scientific Question: Has Anybody Ever Seen Hard Evidence? What We Get Is Theories From Our Earlier Prophets. Now, People Who Think That God Invented Us Think That The Earth Can’t Be More Than 6,000 Years Old. So I Guess It’s A Question Of Belief. My Belief System Doesn’t Support A Creator As Such, As We Can Call God, Who Created Us In His/her/its Image.

I Always Tell My Kids If You Lay Down, People Will Step Over You. But If You Keep Scrambling, If You Keep Going, Someone Will Always, Always Give You A Hand. Always. But You Gotta Keep Dancing, You Gotta Keep Your Feet Moving.

I Once Heard A Wise Man Say There Are No Perfect Men. Only Perfect Intentions.

When I Was A Teenager, I Began To Settle Into School Because I'd Discovered The Extracurricular Activities That Interested Me: Music And Theater.

I Want To Be Up There, Being Lauded And Applauded And Given All These And On The Red Carpet, Waving At The Hordes Of People.

You Know, The Ancient Egyptians Had A Beautiful Belief About Death. When Their Souls Got To The Entrance To Heaven, The Guards Asked Two Questions. Their Answers Determined Whether They Were Able To Enter Or Not. 'have You Found Joy In Your Life?' 'has Your Life Brought Joy To Others?'

It Can Have An Enormous Effect Because Big Budget Movies Can Have Big Budget Perks, And Small Budget Movies Have No Perks, But What Is The Driving Force, Of Course, Is The Script, And Your Part In It.

When I Was A Kid, I Was A Cowboy. I Had A Cap Pistol, And I'd Get Up In The Morning And Strap It On Before I Got Ready.

Let Me Tell You What Justice Is. Justice Is The Law. And That Man's Feeble Attempt To Lay Down The Principles Of Deceny.

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Rob [reiner] Is A Teddy Bear. He's Hell Delicious. He's A Really Good Director. He's A Great Soul. In The Movie Business, I Would Call Him A Movie Mom. The Only Person I Hold In Equal Esteem Is Clint Eastwood. Now I Have Worked With A Lot Of Terrific Directors, And I Don't Mean To Be Putting Any Of Them Below Their Own Station, But These Two, I Relish Working With Them.

I Understand That When Gary Oldman Was In That Suit [batman], Sweat Would Just Drip Off Of Him Where They Had To Have Holes In The Gloves Or Something.

As You Grow In This Business, You Learn How To Do More With Less.

From Early Childhood, My Thrust Was To Get Into The Movies.

Early Childhood

My Job, Personally, Is To Do As Much As I Can To Spread The Warning That If We're Not Careful, It Will End. The Problem Is, We Don't Think Beyond Our Immediate Needs.

I Like Working With Directors Because I'm Really Opinionated About What Things Work And May Not Work, What Audiences Like And May Not Like, (not Really) But I Do Have Opinions About Things. I Like To Be Able To Say Them And Then Have Them Acted On. The Director Who Responds To Me Like That, Always Gets My Appreciation. I Do Appreciate It. What I Find Is The Best Directors, No Matter What Kind Of Name They Have, Are Like That.

There Is No Such Thing As Homophobia. It Is Not A Fear. It Is You Being An Asshole.

If We Don't Save The Oceans, If We Don't Do Something About What We're Doing To The Oceans, As Well As The Planet At Large, We're Going To Be Really Sorry.

I Do Know There Are A Lot Of People Who Seem To Be In My Corner, And That's, Of Course, Wonderful. I'm Really More Interested In The Nomination Than In The Award, Because I Think The Nomination Just Puts You Within A Group Of Outstanding Actors.

I Have To Deal With Being Famous. Sometimes I Have To Tell People I Don't Do Autographs, Thank You Very Much. At Certain Places, I Refuse To Have My Photograph Taken.

I Don't Think You're Going To Get Nominated Every Time You Jump Out Of The Box.

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And Some Places You Been Before Are So Great That You Don't Ever Mind Going Back. Some Places You Been Before You Don't Ever Want To Go Back, You Know, Like Montreal In The Winter.

Our Situation, With Global Warming And Air Quality And All Of That, Has Gotten To Be Catastrophic.

Acting Means Living, It's All I Do.

African American

What I Haven't Talked About I Don't Intend To Talk About.

Doing Comedy Is As Easy As Doing Anything Else. You're Dependent Totally On The Material.

I'm Not Intimidated By Lead Roles. I'm Better In Them. I Don't Feel Pressure. I Feel Released At Times Like That. That's What I'm Born To Do.

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You're Not Going To Be Able To Look Like Anyone Else, No Matter How Hard You Try, Unless You're A Mimic, Then You're Not Acting, You're Just Mimicking. You Can't Go On Being John Wayne, That's John Wayne. So You're Not Going To Steal From John Wayne. I'm Not Going To Steal From John Wayne And You're Not Going To Come Back And Say 'didn't You Get That From The Circus?' You Know. But He Is One Of Those People Who Instructs Me, Whom I Look Up To - Whom I Think Is One Of The Masters Of His Craft That I Am So Enamoured Of.

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Black History Month

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Trying New Things

Learning New Things

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I Have Never Acted He Has Never Been Cast In A Romantic Lead Or Has Been Cast Opposite A Female Love Interest In Any Movie He Starred In.

I Don't Do Comedy. I Think If A Situation Is Funny You Just Play It For Real And If It's Funny, It's Funny.

One Universe, Four Forces, Billions Of Galaxies. The Precision And Complexity Of Our World Is Enough To Make Even The Famous Cosmologist Go Just A Little Bit Crazy. How Does It All Fit Together? Is There A Single, Overarching Design To The Cosmos? And If We Find It, Will We Glimpse The Mind Of God?

Freeman Denied The Claim That He Was A “man Of God”, Saying That “the Question Of Faith Is Whatever You Actually Believe Is. We Take A Lot Of What We're Talking About In Science On Faith; We Posit A Theory, And Until It's Dis-proven We Have Faith That It's True. If The Mathematics Work Out, Then It's True, Until It's Proven To Be Untrue.

If You're Not Living On The Edge Then You're Taking Up A Little Too Much Space.

I Believe In Helping The Planet Survive, And That Includes Reaching Out To Help Some Of The Disappearing Creatures Whose Habitats We're Destroying. It's Up To Us To Somehow Reverse That Trend. I Don't Know How We'll Achieve It, But We Need To.

I Don't Have To Do Anything. The Character Is Shaped On The Page.

Writing I Think, Out Of What All Of Us Do, Writing Is The Hardest. You're The Only Who Start With Nothing Except What's Up Here. You Do That. It's Really Hard I Think, Acting Is Not.

Ive Got A Lot Of Life Left In Me And I Want To Live It Doing Things I Like To Do.

I Remember Saying To My Agent, "listen, Everybody's Going Out To Hollywood And Making Movies. I Think I Ought To Go Out There." And His Advice To Me Was, "i Wouldn't Do That If I Were You. If They Want You In Hollywood, They'll Send You." And Sure Enough, They Did.

Get Busy Livin' Or Get Busy Dyin'.

Did You Just Call Me Old? I Really Prefer The Word 'experienced'.

The Main Thing About Awards In Movies Is That They Can Serve As An Economic Surge For The Film. If You're Movie Gets Nominated For Any Award It Does It A Big Favour. People Might Go And See It Again... They Won't Give Up On It.

Race Seems To Me To Be Less And Less A Subject Worth Discussing.

Still, It Can Be More Effective To Accomplish What You Need To Accomplish With The Minimum Effort. Watch Anthony Hopkins. He Doesn't Appear To Be Doing Anything. He Is So Still That You Can't See Him Working, But You Are Drawn Into His Character Through His Very Stillness.

I Don't Have Anybody Telling Me What To Say. I Have People Who Would Suggest, Maybe, That I Shouldn't Do This, That Or The Other, But That's Strictly Up To Me.

Insanity Is Being Shit On, Beat Down, Coasting Through Life In A Miserable Existence When You Have A Caged Lion Locked Inside And A Key To Release It.

If You Look Back On Your Life And Where You Started From It's Like Looking Back Down A Mountain Back To The Desert Floor. It's Like Now I Can't Believe I Had Whatever It Takes Or Perceived Whatever It Took To Get Here.

And That If You Become A Star, People Are Going To Go To See You. If You Remain An Actor, They're Going To Go And See The Story You're In.

I'm Making A Great Effort Because Sometimes Life Is Not Enjoyable. Sometimes It's Painful And Sometimes It's Stressful, Sometimes It's Agonizing Even, So I Think Once You Get Around Those Humps: Strive For Pleasure And Peace.

If You Get Called On To Help Somebody Pull Focus To Some Good Cause, That's Good Use Of Your Fame. I Don't Try To Avoid That.

The Public Feels That If It's On The Internet And You Can Access It, You Deserve It. You Haven't Committed Any Kind Of Crime. We May Even Have To Rename Piracy. But In Any Case, We Have To Confront It.

Don't Be Afraid Of What You Want. This Is Your Time. The Barriers Are Down.

Nelson Mandela Was A Man Of Incomparable Honor, Unconquerable Strength, And Unyielding Resolve---a Saint To Many, A Hero To All Who Treasure Liberty, Freedom And The Dignity Of Humankind.

I'm Easy Going For The Most Part But Sometimes In The Morning If I Didn't Sleep Well I Can Be Kind Of Grumpy. But My Grumpiness Doesn't Have That Much To Do With My Dissatisfaction With My Station In Life.

The Trick To Any Profession Is Making It Look Easy.

I Go On Vacation Strictly To Relax - To Kick Back With A Good Book And Do Nothing Else But Read, Sleep And Eat.

I Knew At An Early Age I Wanted To Act. Acting Was Always Easy For Me. I Don't Believe In Predestination, But I Do Believe That Once You Get Where Ever It Is You Are Going, That Is Where You Were Going To Be.

No One Is Really A Method Actor, Everyone Has Their Way Of Going About It, Preparing For It, But Method Is Preparation, It's What You Do To Prepare. So My Method Is To Read The Script. Some Actors' Method Is To Read The Script A Hundred Times And In The Doing Of It, To Immerse Themselves In As Much Of The Reality As Possible. Me, I Believe Strictly In Acting. If I Am Out Of Breath, I'm Out Of Breath. I Ain't Running Nowhere.

Growing Up In Mississippi, I Realized That It Was Separate And Unequal And All That, But It Was Still A Safe Place.

If You're Playing Somebody Who Is Not You, Then You Can Imagine That You Are That Person. You Can Feel Like He Feels, Move Like He Moves, Look Like He Looks - In Your Own Mind.

People Say It's A Movie About Boxing, But... I Don't Agree At All. I Don't Think It's A Movie About Boxing. Boxing Is Like A Platform. It's Just A Stage Where This Is Played Out.

I'm A Firm Believer That Things Happen As They Should. The Universe Unfolds Just As It's Supposed To.

I Don't Do Cold. My Reaction To Cold Is Drastic. I'm A Southern Boy.

People Don't Want To Hang Around Someone That You Don't Know How They're Going To React To Anything You Do Or Say.

I Grew Up In The South But I Started Dancing In My Twenties When I Got Out Of The Air Force, And Studying Dance, You're Surrounded By Gay Guys All The Time. You Get To Know Them And You Have To Shift Gears!

In My Home, Who Is My Boss? If You Ask My Wife She'll Say Certainly Not Her. She Claims That She Can't Make Me Do Anything And So She's Not My Boss. I Am. I'm Pretty Sure, Maybe.

Donald Trump Is The Honey Boo Boo Of Rich People.

I Try To Keep My Mind Active. I'm A Solitaire And Puzzle Addict. I Exercise Religiously. I Don't Do Many Things Religiously And I've Taken Up Golf To Have Something To Do When I Have Nothing To Do.

The Odds Are Lousy That I Actually Said Something Attributed To Me.

Look At, Look, The Tea Partiers, Who Are Controlling The Republican Party....their Stated Policy, Publicly Stated, Is To Do Whatever It Takes To See To It That Obama Only Serves One Term. What's, What Does That, What Underlines That? 'screw The Country. We're Going To Whatever We Do To Get This Black Man, We Can, We're Going To Do Whatever We Can To Get This Black Man Outta Here... It Is A Racist Thing.

I Seldom Get Into The Mood Of The Story. It's Acting. I Go In, I Act, I Quit. I Don't Take Anything Away From It.

If You're Going To Play A Brain Surgeon, You Just Have To Learn How To Say The Words. You Don't Have To Go And Learn How To Cut Open Somebody's Scalp. I Think Acting Is Acting. Being Is Something Else.

I Can Only Be So Long Without Work Before I Start Getting Antsy.

The First Thing That Always Pops Into My Head Regarding Our President, Is That All Of The People Who Are Setting Up This Barrier For Him... They Just Conveniently Forget That Barack Had A Mama, And She Was White - Very White; American, Kansas, Middle Of America. There Is No Argument About Who He Is, Or What He Is. America's First Black President Hasn't Arisen Yet. He's Not America's First Black President. He's America's First Mixed-race President.

I'm Not Sure That My Upbringing Has In Itself Informed My Acting Choices.

In My Career? Me. I'm The Boss. I'm The End All And Be All. I'm The Alpha And Omega In That.

We’re Turning Everything On The Planet Into Food For Humans So We’re Cutting Down The Rainforests, Displacing All Of The Animals, And We’re Doing All This To Feed Humans... ... Imagine If There Were Only 2 Billion People Polluting? We’re Already Overpopulated. I Feel We’ve Become A Parasite On This Planet. If This Population Keeps Growing, We’ll Just Keep Devouring The Planet, And I Don’t Think It’s Going To Stand For That Very Long.

You Can't Take Credit For Talent; You Can Only Take Credit For Using It.

I Don't Think That Anyone Learns Anything. Well, I Mean, You Do Always Learn Something If You Have Your Eyes And Ears Open. You Do Learn Something From Every Outing, Every Time That You Go For It. But For Me What Actors Do Is Interact And That's Why You Have To Do That.

One Day Very Soon, We'll Be Asked: What Did We Do. And We Will Say: We Did Everything We Could... We Have To... Because If We Don't There Won't Be Anyone Left To Ask. We Have Never Faced A Crisis This Big, That We Have Never Had Better Ideas To Solve. This Is Our Only Home. We Can Choose Today To Make A World Of Difference.

Nobody Is Trying To Save Energy. We're Trying To Shift Our Use Of Fuel. Forget Saving Energy; If We Get The Right Kind Of Energy, There Are Endless Amounts.

I Find That If I Hold Your Hand, It Transfers An Energy First. I Have A Sense Of How You Feel. That's Important To Me Trying To Become Another Person. I Have A Lot Pressure To Bring A Character To Life In Any Kind Of Real Sense.

I Was Lucky In That When The Opportunity Came, I Was Prepared To Meet It.

Literacy Could Be The Ladder Out Of Poverty

Costume Is Always An Asset. Normal Costume You Have A Lot To Say About - If You're Wearing Suits Or Ties, And What Color You Want, And How It's Going To Be Cut, And Stuff Like That, And Whether Or Not You're Going To Wear A Hat, And Blah, Blah, Blah. But, When You're Wearing A Special Costume, And Of Course, Costume Is Probably The Second Ingredient In Character, Script Being First, I Always Find That The Costume Does A Lot To Cement Your Character, To Put It Firmly In Mind.

Which Lady Would I Like To Meet? Um, I Don't Know That There's Anybody Left That I Didn't Meet. But The One That I Really Wanted To Meet Died And That Was Princess Diana. I Really Wanted To Get To Know Her. I Like Her.

I Always Wanted To Be A Fireman, A Cop, An Indian Chief, A Doctor, A Lawyer. I Always Wanted To Be All These Things, So I Am Drawn To These Kinds Of Characters.

I Have A Problem With Writer/directors, Personal. I Can't Work Well With Both Of Them On The Set, If Both Of Them Are Giving Instructions. Writers Tend To Be In Love With What They Wrote. You Can't Always Translate The Words Into The Meaning, Sometimes The Meaning Is Better Served Without The Words, Difficult To Make A Writer To Try To Understand That. It Gets, Sometimes, Tense.

I'm Not A Comedian. I Don't Make Things Funny If They're Not Funny. I Don't Invent Funny Stuff.

Insanity Is Coasting Through Life.

I Like The Character Roles. Somewhere Back There I Really Came To The Conclusion In My Mind That The Difference Between Acting And Stardom Was Major. And That If You Become A Star, People Are Going To Go To See You. If You Remain An Actor, They're Going To Go And See The Story You're In.

I Think The Best Thing Somebody Ever Did To Me Was My Mother Opening Her Legs And Squirting Me Out.

It Seems To Me That I Never Grow Unless I'm Actually Working With Other Actors Who Have Shed Whatever Shell It Is That Keeps Them Insulated From Each Other.

Working With Others

All You Have To Do Is Believe, Then You Will See Everything.

I Don't Remember What My Favourite Comedy Film Is - Truthfully! I Saw Borat And I Thought I Was Not Going To Be Able To Get Out Of The Theatre Because I Was In So Much Pain From The Laughter.

I Had Gone To School To Work On Technique And Found It Wasn't Something That Was Really Worthwhile To Me, Although It Probably Was.

There Are Things That I Would Like To Do, But I Make A Big Distinction Between Liking To Do Something And Wanting To Do Something. If There's Something That I Want To Do I've Done It. If There's Something That Comes Up That I Want To Do I Will Do It.

I Always Knew That Someone Was Going To Come At Me With A Script To Play God. It's Just One Of Those Things, The Way Your Career Is Unfolding And All The Talk About Gravitas Etc Etc, So I Had A Strong Feeling That Someone Was Going To Offer Me The Part Of God. I Was Totally Prepared To Say, 'thanks But No Thanks,' Unless It Was A Comedy.

Let Me Be The First To Tell You, Drinking Alcohol Is The Worst Thing To Do In Cold Weather. Hot Soup Is The Best Because The Process Of Digesting Food Helps To Warm You Up.

When I Was Getting Close To Being Accepted For Pilot Training, I Was Allowed To Get In A Jet Airplane. I Sat There Looking At All Those Switches And Dials And I Got The Distinct Feeling That I Was Sitting In The Nose Of Bomb. I Realized My Fantasies Of Flying And Fighting Were Just That - Fantasies.

Flip On The News And Watch How We Treat The Batman Theater Shooter And The Oregon Mall Shooter Like Celebrities. Dylan Klebold And Eric Harris Are Household Names, But Do You Know The Name Of A Single ‘victim’ Of Columbine?

If You Dream You've Got To Dream That It's Going To Happen. Remember That. If You Dream You Have To Imagine That It Will Actually Happen.

Never Let Pride Be Your Guiding Principle. Let Your Accomplishments Speak For You.

Guiding Principles

I'm Not One Who Can Write Out A Speech And Remember All The Names Of The People That You Need To Thank Because You Need To Thank All Of Those People.

So If I Believe In God, And I Do, It's Because I Think I'm God.

We Humans Are More Concerned With Having Than With Being.

That Is A Big Turn-on For Me, A Director Who Knows What He's Doing And What He Wants, And Knows When He's Gotten What He Wants.

I Never Think About Awards Or Anything Like That When I Do A Job. I Was First Named A Best Actor When I Was 12 Years Old And It Doesn't Really Mean Anything When You Get Down To It, Because There Is No Best. I Don't Get All That Involved. My Chest Puffs Up As Much As I Can Puff It Up But I Am Not Trying To Be Better Than The Person I Am Acting With. I Am Trying To Be At Least As Good. That's How It Works.

I've Just Never Been The Kind Of Actor That Things Have Stayed With. I've Never Needed To Carry A Character Off Stage.

The Accident Was A Horrible Thing - But That Horrible Thing Made Chris, At The End Of His Life, Superman. It's A Happy Irony If There Is Such A Thing. I'm Proud To Have Known Him.

Stage Is Really Hard Work. You've Got To Do It Every Night. Not Like Doing It Once And Walking Away.

Most Of The Time It's The Role. Sometimes It's The Story And Sometimes It Just The Paycheck. It's The Little Movies That Come Out As Stories Or The Fact That I Have Work To Go Out, You Know What I'm Saying, You Can Only Be Out So Long Without Work, You Start Getting Antsy.

Finding Joy Is Probably Tantamount To Finding Yourself And Being Comfortable In Your Own Skin.

Finding Yourself

Fatigue, Discomfort, Discouragement Are Merely Symptoms Of Effort.

Write Something Insightful. Say Morgan Freeman Said It. Win At Internet.

I Was Raised In Mississippi, So Heat And Humidity Is My Bread And Butter. It Keeps Me Going. I Can't Stand Cold Weather.

Heat And Humidity

There's An Exercise We Do Where Someone Is Sat Behind You And You're Asked To Close Your Eyes And Fall Backwards. That's Acting.

A Lot Of People Are Going Around Saying, 'you Won The Academy Award For Such And Such.' 'no. I Didn't.' 'you Didn't?' 'well, You Should Have.'

Challenge Yourself; It’s The Only Path Which Leads To Growth.

I Don't Know What My Favorite Film Of Mine Is... But I Think The Most Important Film I Was In Was Glory.

The Highest Power Is The Human Mind. That's Where God Came From And My Belief In God Is My Belief In Myself.

They're Talking About Kids Who Have Grand Mal Seizures, And They've Discovered That Marijuana Eases That Down To Where These Children Can Have A Life. That Right There, To Me, Says, 'legalize It Across The Board!'

Dr. Martin Luther King Is Not A Black Hero. He Is An American Hero.

My Earrings Are Worth Just Enough To Buy Me A Coffin If I Die In A Strange Place. That Was The Reason Why Sailors Used To Wear Them.

This Kid Came Up With Napster, And Before That, None Of Us Thought Of Content Protection.

I Think You Take A Job, You Owe It As Much Passion As The Job Itself Demands. And Most Jobs Demand That You Be Totally Committed.

Life Doesn't Offer You Promises Whatsoever So It's Very Easy To Become, 'whatever Happened To... ?' It's Great To Be Wanted. I Spent A Few Years Not Being Wanted And This Is Better.

I've Been Living With Myself All Of My Life, So I Know All Of Me. So When I Watch Me, All I See Is Me. It's Boring.

Someone's Always Going To Come Down On The Side Of The Fence.

I Like The Blues A Lot. I Grew Up On It.

Once You've Gotten The Job, There's Nothing To It. If You're An Actor, You're An Actor. Doing It Is Not The Hard Part. The Hard Part Is Getting To Do It.

If You Sat Down And You Wrote A Script, You May Write Something That's Way Beyond What You've Ever Seen Me Do, But If You Thought Of Me To Do It, I Would Be Flattered To Be Asked To Do Something Other Than Be Wise.

I Think One Of The Things When You're Casting Children Is You're Also Casting Their Parents.

The Surest Way To Lose At Any Endeavor Is To Quit.

Is Listening Important? I Can't Think Of A Single Walk Of Life Where It Wouldn't Be.

Hey, If I Don't Have A Job, I Don't Know Why I Bother To Get Up. Any Time The Phone Rings, I'm Ready To Go. What Else Am I Going To Do? See, I've Never Retired. I Don't Even Know What It Means.

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