“Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that never comes due.”
For years I thought this line had originated with David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner (‘97). It’s heard during Act One (the section filmed in Islamorada on the Florida keys) and spoken by the late Ricky Jay.
I was mostly wrong. The sentence construction is Mamet’s but the origin of the line appears to reach back to either Mark Twain or English author-priest William Inge. Will Rogers offered his own version.
Worry is a waste of time, agreed, but guilt, a close cousin, serves a noble function. In Broadway Danny Rose (‘84) Woody Allen’s titular figure explains to Mia Farrow’s brusque mafia girlfriend character that guilt “is good…it steers us away from immoral choices and closer to God.” Farrow: “Do you believe in God?” Allen: “No, but I feel guilty about it.”
