00:00there to catch you before you really had to dig yourself out of a hole.
00:05Our country has been through many different sea changes and my thought is I will be here
00:12specifically to honor Mark Twain and the people that this award stands for and also all the
00:19young people, young, old, middle-aged that have worked here at the Kennedy Center for
00:23a long time and this is their livelihood.
00:26So that was my thinking and it's an incredible honor to be here.
00:32Twain hated bullies.
00:34He populated his works with abusers such as Huck Finn's alcoholic father, Tom Driscoll
00:38and Puddinhead Wilson and he made his readers passionately hate those characters.
00:43He punched up, not down, and he deeply, deeply empathized with the weak.
00:54Twain was allergic to hypocrisy and he loathed racism.
00:57So I accept this award in the spirit of humility, stupidity, inanity, irrelevance, fear, self-doubt
01:08and profound unceasing silliness.
01:12I thank you.
01:13It's the honor of a lifetime.
01:14Thank you so much.
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