Where It All Starts

"I think you could walk down the street and see a kid--a seven- or eight-year-old kid--and he's throwing a baseball.  You stop him--you're a stranger.  And you say, 'Hey, throw that ball again.'  And the kid throws the ball again.  You say, 'Hey, you could be a major-league pitcher.  You've got the stuff for it.  You really know how to throw the ball.'  You leave, and you never see that kid again for the rest of your life.  But that kid has a better chance of being a big-league pitcher than if you hadn't stopped."  --Robert Altman, film director, quoted in Robert Altman: The Oral Biography, by Mitchell Zuckoff (2009)