Brando: Very few people care enough to be a witness to life

From Artists Supporting the Arts in Public Schools on Facebook:

Acting -- all of the arts -- is about observation. As Tennessee [Williams] said, it is about being a witness. Very few people can do this. Very few people care enough to do this. The actor, the writer, the artist, the musician witnesses the world and its people -- and then he tells the stories he has remembered, overheard, surmised. Always attempt to be a witness. Remember those you've loved; those who moved you. In almost every performance I've ever given -- and of which I've been somewhat proud -- I've had a piece of my mother, overwhelmed by life, consumed by sadness, poisoned by alcohol, but still reaching out to me and rubbing my forehead until I fell asleep. I take that memory and I implant it in every character I play. I honor her efforts through gangsters and emperors and brutes and saints. The loving hand on the forehead, when the fist of life is bashing her own head. --Marlon Brando/Interview with James Grissom/1990