A few nights ago, Billy Crystal received the 10th Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The award program aired on PBS and for most of the evening Billy Crystal watched as others high-lighted his comedic accomplishments. Then came his turn.

In his acceptance of the award he was his usual hilarious self, saying things like “Whenever I think about Mark Twain, one thing comes to mind — Cliffs Notes.”

But I would say the highlight of the speech was the honor he gave to his wife, Janice Goldfinger, whom he met as a teenager and has been married to for 37 years.

He said to her, “Our marriage is like Mark Twain’s big Mississippi. You, with your steady flow of understanding and compassion, and me with my big mouth and sandy bottom.” Of course, there’s his humor again, but he truly held his wife up in high esteem.

Right along the Twain tradition, not only in humor, but also in valuing his wife.

Consider this Mark Twain quote:

If husbands could realize what large returns of profit may be gotten out of a
wife by a small word of praise paid over the counter when the market is just
right, they would bring matters around the way they wish them much oftener
than they usually do. Arguments are unsafe with wives, because they examine
them; but they do not examine compliments. One can pass upon a wife a
compliment that is three-fourths base metal; she will not even bite it to see
if it is good; all she notices is the size of it, not the quality.
- “Hellfire Hotchkiss,” reprinted in Satires and Burlesques

How long since you praised your wife, or wife to be?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Commitment, Marriage News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.