Reply #9: Um, those of us who love F. Scott Fitzgerald know that when he said

[Berry Cool]

"There are no second acts in American lives," he did NOT mean that everybody in America gets only one chance to be successful and that's it. He meant that American lives are like a play with a first act and a third act, but no second act in the middle: i.e., they rush pell-mell from beginning to end with no development in between.

Damn, I get sick of the "Fitzgerald was wrong about there being no second acts in American lives--look at all the people who made big comebacks" meme being lazily repeated by even supposedly intelligent writers like Frank Rich.