Obama the Writer Celebrates Artists

I am loving the concert - all music I know - which is a rarity.  Forrest Whitaker just read these very lines from Faulkner's banquet speech when he accepted the Noble Prize.  

It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

I read elsewhere that Faulkner was drunk, had to be lied to in order to get him on the plane to Norway, he just didn't want to go.

Thank goodness he did.

Can read the full text here.

Thank goodness Obama is an artist and a writer himself.  A new day.