Phone Message Transcript: July 31, 1998
[appearing on Anne's fan phone line]

"Hi this is Anne Rice and it's July 31st, very early in the morning. Thank you for all your calls and all your messages. I appreciate them very much. I'm sorry I haven't been updating my message anymore frequently. By the way, if I cam cut off during this message which the machine sometimes does, you can still leave me a message right after the beep. Go ahead. I do pay a great deal of attention to what you have to say and you keep me going. You really do. Even those of you who say a few negative things. It keeps me going.

I want to recommend a film tonight that's actually ten years old. It's an English film and it starts Maggie Smith and the name of it is THE LONELY PASSSION OF JUDITH HEARNE. That's spelled H-E-A-R-N-E. It's a wonderful film. I discovered it while watching Bravo the other night. But I found it also on VHS rental and I rented the tape and I know you can find it too. And I can't recommend it more highly. Not only is Maggie Smith in it, but Bob Hoskins is in it and there's a marvelous supporting cast. It's a beautiful film and there's a moment in the film where this lonely woman goes into the sacristy, not the sacristy but the sanctuary of the church and tears up this curtain from the tabernacle. She's so lonely that she actually goes right to Jesus himself and begs for some sort of consolation or comforting. I've never seen this happen in a film. I've seen many men commit a sacrilege in films. I've seen many men confront Christ on the cross or in the tabernacle, but this is the first time I've seen a woman walk right past the altar railand make this assault on the tabernacle. It's very tragic and very heart rending. I highly recommend it. I think you'll love it. After I watched this film I felt a little impatient with the quality of most of the other films that I've seen. This was just so finely done. Again, it's directed by Jack Clayton and it's just excellent.

Let me also say that tonight I am very much in support of President Clinton with his present dump of misfortune. I think it's absolutely revolting that Ken Starr has gotten this apparently stained dress from Monica Lewinsky and they're now testing it to find out if they can trap the President of the United States by DNA testing into saying that he had some sort of relationship with Monica. I don't think that Presidents should testify. He is the executive. He is the Commander-In-Chief. He does not have to testify and I think he should stand on his Constitutional rights in this case. I frankly want the President to be worried about Pakistan and India, about the Far East, about the Near East. About everything that is going on in the world. And I think he is a splendid moral model because of what he has done for the poor, what he has done for the schools, what he has done for the nursing homes and what he has done for the economy. I hope you all agree with me and if you do, maybe you'll drop a line to the President and tell him how much you believe in him. His popularity is running very high and the press seems to be mystified. I'm not mystified. We're living really well now. The country is filled with hope and Bill Clinton's energy affects everybody. I don't care what he did with Monica Lewinsky and it nauseates me to see what is happening now with the press. The focus again is on Linda Tripp, who is a really odious character, a despicable character really. And it's sort of like reading the National Enquirer to watch the national news. Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that and if you have time to leave me a message of any kind, please do it. And I'll try to respond in my answer on this machine. I can't answer messages personally.

Also want to remind you the fan club's big ball is coming up on Halloween. And later on I'll have some information on this machine as to how you can reach the fan club. In the meantime, keep giving me your opinions, if you will, or the two books that I wrote, VIOLIN and SERVANT OF THE BONES. I'm very interested in how you feel about those books, if you happened to have read them.

ARMAND, THE VAMPIRE ARMAND is coming out on October 17th. I'm very excited about it.

I love all of you. I pay a lot of attention to what you say. You keep me going, no matter how bad it is. Keep the messages coming. God bless you and keep you.

Thanks all. Thanks everybody. Thanks for everything."