thank you all thank you I I cannot tell
you how pleased I am at this incredible
reception and I feel that I genuinely do
not deserve or qualify on many counts
for this prestigious Mark Twain Award
and yet let me say that there are other
counts many other counts for which this
prize is totally deserved
i-i've cleverly hidden my notebook here
in my armpit and I wrote this because I
wanted to come clean and I wrote to why
I do and do not deserve the Mark Twain
prize
by Lily Tomlin
as told to Jane Wagner
as many of you have learned she's an
exceptional wit and she is the creator
of humor on a the caliber of Mark Twain
truthfully I can't hold a candle to
either of them and I have merely learned
how to emulate that incandescent in
performance and while I'm shamed to be
here tonight under false pretenses I
must say I am really enjoying myself
yes yes and I am having an excellent
time too
[Applause]
today at the National Zoo they gave me a
box of the animal crackers and when I
looked inside there wasn't nothing there
they had eaten up each other that kind
of reminds me of Washington
I almost forgot there's another way in
which I differ from Mark Twain I have
actually met hal holbrook and now to get
on to the reasons why this award is
justified there are many things about
Mark Twain which are exactly like me
like Mark Twain I have coveted and built
myself a large house
in the hopes of creating a larger public
personality and like Twain I too find
myself now deeply in debt to pay for the
bills he'd incurred in pursuit of a
larger personality Twain was obliged to
travel in lecture and pursuit of a
larger income until the end of his life
I am fully confident that my future will
be the same and like Twain I find a bad
review to be deeply depressing Twain
kept voluminous scrapbooks of his good
reviews and so have I recently however I
picked up one of my Spratt books and the
newsprint crumbled to the floor
well I that just about wraps it up for
the reasons why this award is deserved
now wait a minute wait a minute aren't
you forgetting a few similarities cuts
your cantankerous you're a tightwad you
smoked cigars and you're developing a
moustache
[Applause]