Meryl Streep: Talent Is A Sacrament
Tenn's bed, in the second-floor suite of the Royal Orleans Hotel, was a cluster of curiosities: notes, drawings, photographs, rough drafts of plays, poems, opening paragraphs. Among these many items were two pages of notes--on creased pages--about Meryl Streep, an actress who clearly fascinated him. Here are the notes, precisely as they were written or typed on those pages. Talent is a sacrament, and one doled out by a miserly God, who understands that its worth is sustained by its rarity, and its value increases when the ecstasy it releases upon exposure is felt by those who understand and appreciate it--those who can recognize it. I have searched for faith, which people keep telling me is the greatest and rarest of gifts, but I see now that talent is the great gift, the pearl of great price, and a mean seductress, for you can only search for it in others: It will never arise from within you through faith or prayer or diligence. You either have talent or you don'
