Don
Birnam: It
shrinks my liver, doesn't it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys, yeah. But what it does
to the mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly
I'm above the ordinary. I'm competent. I'm walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls.
I'm one of the great ones. I'm Michaelangelo, molding the beard of Moses. I'm
Van Gogh painting pure sunlight. I'm Horowitz, playing the Emperor Concerto. I'm
John Barrymore before movies got him by the throat. I'm Jesse James and his two
brothers, all three of them. I'm W. Shakespeare. And out there it's not Third
Avenue any longer, it's the Nile. Nat, it's the Nile and down it moves the barge
of Cleopatra.
-----
Don
Birnam: Most
men lead lives of quiet desperation. I can't take quiet desperation!
