"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."
