Jack Davidson

“Once...
Well, not once,
not at all once.
Many many many many times,
there was a person who worked hard,
a person who tried to work hard,
and tried to do their best,
and tried to do well by their family,
and tried to be good, and tried to do better.
Many many times they tried this.
And so.
The person became who they always were--
who we all always are--
A Person Trying.

So they all tried and they tried and they looked around at the mountains of effort
that they had built with their trying
at the piles of half-built bests
at the heaps of family
at the hills of good enough hills and better next time,
and as they looked around,
as they took in the view,
they saw what they had done to make the life
that they had lived.

And they looked to the left and saw what you had done
to try to make the life that you have lived,
and they took in that view.

And they looked to the right and saw what you had done
to try to make the life that you have lived,
and they took in that view.

They took it all in.
And in their estimation
they found all of it,
their view over all of it,
the sum of all of it,
to be fair.”
― Jackie Sibblies Drury, Fairview

“Dear me, whatever shall we do with mother?”
― James Goldman, The Lion in Winter

“I think maybe heaven is a sea of untranslatable jokes. Only everyone is laughing.”
― Sarah Ruhl, The Clean House and Other Plays

“Action is character. What a person does is what he is, not what he says.”
― Syd Field, Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting Paperback – November 29, 2005