anger management

'My mother died before I made it. You know, here’s what I really remember about my mother. We’re on the top floor of our tenement. It’s freezing out. I have to go to school the next day. I’m maybe 10 years old. Down in the alleyway, my friends are calling up to me. They want me to go travelling around with them at night and have some real fun. My mother wouldn’t let me. I remember being so angry with her. “Why can’t I go out like everyone else? What’s wrong with me?” On and on I screamed at her. She endured my wrath. And she saved my life. Because those guys down in the alley - none of them are around right now. I don’t think about it that much. But it touches me now as I’m talking about it. She didn’t want me out in the streets late at night. I had to do my homework. And I’m sitting here right now because of it. It’s so simple, isn’t it? But we forget, we just forget.'

— Al Pacino (Esquire Magazine, July 2002)