The principle element in a performance is risk, and if you're losing interest then by scaring yourself to death the audience will feel it and boy it'll wake them up.
I must therefore implore your indulgence for a pretty long and plain development of my views concerning that cause which the citizens of New York, and you particularly, gentlemen, honour with generous interest.
In those days, between the ages of 12 and 18 you meant nothing. You were the extra place at the side table if someone came to dinner. You were of no interest to anyone.
My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.
After my first visit to Japan, in 1960, to work on a joint model building project at Osaka University, I maintained a continuing interest in the country and the entire Far East.
The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.
Every American born today owes $43,000 to the federal government the day she or he is born. And we are transferring a tremendous amount of debt to the new generation, much of it owed to overseas creditors who expect to be repaid by our children with interest.
You could argue that war is always an irrational act, and yet many states enter into military conflict out of rational calculation or national interest or the stability or longevity of their regime.
I love acting but I don't like all of the other stuff associated with it. The interest in celebrities, the press, the Internet, when your identity becomes mixed up in the way people are preceving you.
