These LIFE-CHANGING Words INSPIRED Johnny Depp & Marlon Brando | Preface to The Time of Your Life
When two great actors Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp met in person for the first time, they discovered an unbelievable coincidence. Depp revealed in an interview that when mentioned a quote he loved, Brando asked him to read it. Depp started to read it from memory until Brando took over, finishing it from memory. They’d both been carrying around a similar dog-eared version of the excerpt because it had such a profound effect on them.
The page was from William Saroyan’s play The Time of Your Life, and it influenced the lives of Brando and Depp so intensely that they both carried it with them. The excerpt ends with the following.
“Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live — so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”
Both Depp and Brando see the beauty in the people and things around them and are not solely focused on their careers. They understand that acting is their job, but there is a lot more to life.
** William Saroyan, The Time Of Your Life (1939) – Full Preface **
“In the time of your life, live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.
Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.
Be the inferior of no man, or of any men be superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man’s guilt is not yours, nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.
In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”
― William Saroyan, The Time Of Your Life