... You're Nuts But You're Welcome Here.

First The Doctor Told Me The Good News: I Was Going To Have A Disease Named After Me.

Only Then Does He Realize What He Has Done To Mirabelle, How Wanting A Square Inch Of Her And Not All Of Her Has Damaged Them Both, And How He Cannot Justify His Actions Except That, Well, It Was Life.

What I Mean Is That None Of My Talents Had A - What's That Great Word - Rubric. A Singer, An Actor, A Dancer - There Was Nothing I Could Really Say I Was. The Writing Came Much Later. And, Actually, Thank God, Because If I Had Said I'm A Singer, I Would Really Have Just Had One Thing To Do.

I Ignored My Stand-up Career For Twenty-five Years, But Now, Having Finished This Memoir, I View This Time With Surprising Warmth. One Can Have, It Turns Out, An Affection For The War Years.

I'm 48. For A While After 'the Jerk' (movie) I Had A Feeling Of Failure. I Was A Little Scared. First People Discover You And They Love You. You Get Big And Then You Fail. And People Are Glad That You Fail. But I've Always Come Back And I've Started To Trust Myself.