“Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful foranybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they liveit every, every minute?”

－THORNTONWILDER, EMILY IN “OUR TOWN”

You must learn day by day, year by year, tobroaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in,the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about-the more you have leftwhen anything happens.

I suppose the greatest thing in the worldis loving people and wanting to destroy the sin but not the sinner. And not toforget that when life knocks you to your knees-well, that’s the best positionin which to pray, isn’t it？ On your knees. That’s where I leaned.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Ethel Barrymore, who died in 1959 at the ageof 79, brought more than a commanding presence and faultless technique to herlong, distinguished theatrical career. She was a woman of rare insight and understanding,as this expression of her personal philosophy so eloquently reveals.

體認世事

喔！大地啊，你令人難以了解，因為你太奧妙了。可曾有人在他的一生中每一分鐘都體認了人生嗎？

－懷爾德

你必須日復一日、年復一年地學習，以廣眼界。你愈是熱愛事物，你愈是深感興趣，你愈是樂在其中，你愈是對某些事物憤慨不平──那麼一旦遇事，你恃以應付變故的事物便愈多。

我想世界上最偉大的事莫過於愛他人及撲滅罪行而予罪人以自新了。不要忘了，當生活使你受到打擊而站不起來的時候，那麼，這該是祈禱最適當的時候了，不是嗎？我跪下來祈禱，我就在這樣的情形下去體認世事。

愛德巴萊摩（影劇女伶）