Description
IN THE PRE-WAR era when itinerant home-remedy salesmen still wandered the country, they had a traditional pattern for selling a potion that was supposed to be particularly effective in treating burns and cuts. A toad with four legs in front and six behind would be placed in a box with mirrors lining the four walls. The toad, amazed at its own appearance from every angle, would break into an oily sweat. This sweat would be collected and simmered for 3.721 days while being stirred with a willow branch. The result was the marvelous potion.
Writing about myself, I feel something like that toad in the box. I have to look at myself from many angles, over many years, whether I like what I see or not. I may not be a ten-legged toad, but what confronts me in the mirror does bring on something like the toad's oily sweat.
Circumstances have conspired, without my noticing it, to make me reach seventy-one years of age this year. Looking back over all this time, what is there for me to say, except that a lot has happened? Many people have suggested that I write an autobiography, but I have never before felt favorably disposed toward the idea. This is partly because I believe that what pertains only to myself is not interesting enough to record and leave behind me. More important is my conviction that if I were to write anything at all, it would turn out to be nothing but talk about movies. In other words, take "myself," subtract "movies" and the result is "zero."
ISBN 9780394714394
