Playing the links

Corey Klemow sent me a link to an unpublished speech written by Larry Gelbart. I don't know if he saw this, but at the bottom of the page there's also a link to what's billed as Gelbart's Last In-Depth Interview. It's actually excerpted from a book about writers of humor that I've had requested from the library almost two months.

As usual, excerpts follow; following the links is more than recommended.

Almost exclusively, writers are the only ones among us who are given the chance to live their lives all over again.

the central theme for Tootsie came from me. And the central theme was that Dustin's character, Michael Dorsey, would become a better man for having been a woman.

Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman): "I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man."

Your brain will never stop for the day, even if you have stopped working, and there's a very good chance you'll come up with something better.

Isaac Bashevis Singer's advice for the struggling young writer was to stop struggling and write. As for me, I don't have any other advice. If I did, I would have had a far more trouble-free life and a much, much better career.