Saturday, August 29, 2015

"You're promised nothing. Ever." Marlon Brando


Every time I think of saying good-bye to Facebook, I will get a snippet in my feed from Joanne Woodward.  I don't know Joanne and I'm not sure how I became one of her FB friends but almost daily she posts quotes from two works by James Grissom: Tennessee Williams biography, "Follies of God" and from Marlon Brando's portrait "Come Up A Man: The Hungers of Marlon Brando. We knew Tennessee was brilliant but who knew Marlon Brando was a brilliant thinker?  All of Brando's quotes are so incisive it makes you realize he could have been a great writer as well as a great actor.  He gets to the deeply buried truth about things.  In the quote below he talks about talent in a way I hadn't considered.

"Work the talent. Hone the talent. Share the talent. This has been my life, and this was seen as healthy and necessary. Talent gives nothing to its owner: It only gives momentary pleasure to those to whom it is given. The application of talent depletes a person, while the study of things and people to feed it give great pleasure. But when you're done sharing the talent, you're empty and tired and terribly vulnerable, and if you have no one in your life to tell you to do things and to be there for them, you're dead. Talent is not enough. Judy Garland is proof of that: She gave and she gave, and she had, in the end, nothing. No one to hold her--I mean HER, not the person known as Judy Garland. I am an example of this: I pursued talent and work and the marketing of it, and what do I have? What do any of us have? A lonely phone call in the night."--Marlon Brando/ From Grissom's "Come Up A Man: The Hungers of Marlon Brando

And also from Brando: "You're promised nothing. Ever. Without becoming entirely nihilistic, keep this always in mind. The pursuit is everything. The reaching. The straining. Harold [Clurman] told me once that to die with your arm stretched toward something that is impossible for you is the greatest goal to have. Keep reaching. Expect nothing. And then--one day, amazingly--you grab hold of the play, the film, the book, the person. And life is that amazing thing you hoped for, dreamed of." 

The other quote is from  Grissom's extraordinary portrait of Tennessee Williams' and his take on Ernest Hemingway.  It is exactly the way I feel about Hemingway, "he altered the literary scene for all of us and his rhythms are now our rhythms....."  By the way, this book is a masterful biography of Williams' creative process which can overlap to include even the least of us.

 "Whatever we may feel about him personally--whatever his particular demons may have been--he altered the literary scene for all of us, and his rhythms are now our rhythms, and his nightmares our nightmares. We are all indebted to him even in small ways."--Tennessee Williams on Ernest Hemingway.


 Off subject:  on a personal note, I have been fortunate to sell another book (one that isn't written yet) and my posts may be farther (further?) apart.  I'm a little scared if I will be able to fulfill the enthusiasm and expectations of the publisher but I'm going to keep writing and do my best.  Writing this blog has helped me become a more facile writer.  By that I mean I can summon the emotional context in which to place events without too much agonizing.  My mind is used to finding the best way to present even small ideas.  I notice the writing process is markedly different from when I wrote my last book.  

6 comments:

  1. Ooooh, a new book from you, something to look forward to!

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    1. Happy to hear from you!! Happy with the other book Amazon bought and published so I sold them another one. Still writing this one with delivery date in January. It's another historical set in Nassau County here in New York. I've had a lot of luck.

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  2. Just read Three Daughters on Kindle. Love the way you write.

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    1. Thank you. I am so grateful when readers get in touch.

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