If this life is a performance, then surely this performance is a stage performance and not a cinematic one. For we are confronted not by the camera, but by the living audience. We act as we are meant to do, for there can be no editing. If we give a lousy performance, there is no way to take it back, because there are no additional takes for the taking. What makes life more difficult than any stage performance is the absence of a script. There is no telling what comes next and there will be no rehearsals. From the moment we are born, the curtain rises and we have entered the stage. And by the time the critics evaluate our performance and historians make their conclusions, we would have departed from this stage we call the world.
Life – what a profoundly difficult performance to give!
最难演的一场戏
著：刘墉
人生，这是一场多么难演的戏呀！
如果我们把人生形容成戏，那么这场戏就应当是指舞台剧，而非电影。因为我们面对的是活生生的观众，而非摄影机；我们是按部就班地演下来，而不能剪接；我们演坏了就再也无法收回，因为那不能喊NG。此外比舞台剧更难的是，我们没有剧本，所以不能预知下一刻的发展；更没有排演的机会，因为从生下来的那一刻，便步上了舞台。而当剧评家为这场戏下评语，历史家盖棺定论时，我们早已随着走下舞台而离开人世了。
人生，这是一场多么难演的戏呀！