Do you realize that anything you can do in your lifetime will be meaningless a hundred years from now?
— You're a dentist?
— Afraid so.
— You suicidal?
— See, now, why would you say that?
— I once read that dentists are prone to suicide.
— Look, Jimmy, I may hate my life, but I certainly don't wanna die.
— You better get used to it because you're going to. Everybody dies. Sooner or later. Tulip?
— No!
How to keep — is there any any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, lace, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty... from vanishing away?
O is there no frowning of these wrinkles, ranked wrinkles deep,
Down? No waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there’s none, there’s none, O no there’s none,
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning.
In Stardust Memories I used the term ‘Ozymandias Melancholia’. That’s a symptom I’ve invented that describes that phenomenon specifically, the realization that your works of art will not save you and will mean nothing down the line. Eventually, there won’t be any universe, so even all the works of Shakespeare and all the works of Beethoven will be gone.
Explanation:
Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation with Stig Bjorkman. "Interiors"
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