Jack Black: A Life Lived

Extract from Jack Black's You Can't Win

Jack Black's You Can't Win is one of my favourite books. I thought I'd share the final paragraphs which have special meaning for me.

"Had I spent that thirty years at any useful occupation and worked as hard at it and thought and planned and brought such ingenuity and concentration to bear on it, I would probably be independent to-day. I would have a home, a family perhaps, and a respected position in my community. I have none of those, but I have a job, I have two suits of clothes, I have two furnished rooms in a flat. I have as many friends as I can be loyal to. I am fifty years old, and so healthy that when I hear my friends holding forth about their ailments I feel ashamed of myself. I would not turn time backward and be young again, neither do I wish to reach the century mark and possible senility.

I have no money, no wife, no auto. I have no dog. I have neither a radio set nor a rubber plant - I have no troubles.

I borrow money from my friends at a pinch, ride in their machines, listen to their radios, make friends with their dogs, admire their flowers and praise their wives' cooking.

If I could wish for anything else it would be a little more moderation, a little more tolerance, and a little more of the trustful innocence of that boy who learned his prayers at the knee of the gentle, kindly old priest in the Sisters' Convent School."
-Jack Black

On a side note...Willem Dafoe would make an awesome Jack Black. :)