American Rhetoric: Movie Speech

"Meet Joe Black" (1998)

William Parrish 65th Birthday Party Speech

Audio mp3 delivered by Anthony Hopkins

Parrish: I thought I was going to sneak away tonight.

What a glorious night.

Every face I see is a memory.

It may not be a perfectly perfect memory.

Sometimes we had our ups and downs.

But we're all together and you're mine for a night.

And I'm going to break precedent and tell you my one-candle wish:

That you would have a life as lucky as mine,

where you can wake up one morning and say,

"I don't want anything more."

...Sixty-five years.

Don't they go by in a blink....