This is a note that Jim Jarmusch wrote for Samuel Fuller upon his death, published in Projections 8 (eds John Boorman & Walter Donohue, Faber & Faber 1998), p. 405.
"Sam, I can see you now, having crossed that line into the darkness (or maybe into the light) and there, in some dimension of the world of the spirits, you've already cornered Mark Twain, and as you animatedly extol the virtues of the Linotype machine, the wonders of the handheld traveling shot, the old guy can't get a word in edgewise.
Sam, you're dead, though I never met a human more alive, more excited by the details of life. And by now you've located Beethoven - you've got him by the lapels and are laughing wildly. Your eyes are on fire, as is the cigar you're gesturing with just inches from the great composer's startled face. You're updating him on William Randolph Hearst, Al Capone, Darryl Zanuck, Jean Eagles, and her fatal overdose from heroin in 1929, on the storming of Normandy Beach and The Big Red One, on the New York Evening Graphic, Lee Marvin, Constance Towers, Jesse James... And then, maybe in the middle of your passionate and dramatic explanation of the American Civil War (brother against brother!) you suddenly realize that the man you're talking to is stone deaf. That Ludwig couldn't hear a word you're saying even is he did understand English! But you decide it doesn't matter and, chomping on your cigar, continue on, and anyway isn't that Dziga Vertov over there, in the corner of your eye, drinking and joking with Marie Antoinette?"