This is just what I have thought when I have seen slaves at work - they seem to go through the motions of labor without putting strength into them. They keep their powers in reserve for their own use at night, perhaps.

The only reason I would stay away from a period piece is because sometimes the women are painted in a very stereotypical weakling, wallflower way - that's something I don't want to do. I want to show strength in the women I play, and a journey of some sort.

Death used to announce itself in the thick of life but now people drag on so long it sometimes seems that we are reaching the stage when we may have to announce ourselves to death. It is as though one needs a special strength to die, and not a final weakness.

The strength of the United States is not the gold at Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction that we have, but the sum total of the education and the character of our people.

The poem is the point at which our strength gave out.