Praise hurts. If you’re bad at taking compliments, that’s fair, because they’re embarrassing. Big-ups put you on the spot. Accolades can feel like favors you’re obligated to repay. They can make you feel as if your accomplishments are only meaningful by the light of someone else’s judgment. And that’s assuming we trust their basic sincerity. There’s a reason “gratitude practice” is so popular in self-improvement circles: accepting compliments and other mitzvahs is hard work, and how we do it tells us a lot about ourselves. In fact, I should probably delete all of this.

If you want to get better at accepting praise with poise, humility, and grace, models exist. My favorite is the speech that actor Joe Pesci made in acceptance of his 1991 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Martin Scorsese’s essential gangster flick Goodfellas.

In the film, Pesci plays the vituperative hothead Tommy DeVito, a charismatic demon and captivating spinner of yarns who understands the complexity of taking a compliment. In his most oft-quoted scene, DeVito is praised by the film’s protagonist Henry Hill for his comic timing. DeVito sees this, somewhat correctly, as a power move. His response boils down to, “who are you to try to manipulate me with kind words?” While Tommy is generally understood to be volatile and unpredictable, his menace in this scene serves an important function. It shows he can’t be so easily bought.

Pesci’s equally iconic Oscars speech may have not been so calculated. He was up against Bruce Davidson, Andy Garcia, Graham Greene, and Al Pacino, at least two of whom were nominated for more typically Oscar-bound work. The rumor is that Pesci was 100% certain he wasn’t going to win. So he didn’t prepare a speech. And he didn’t really give one.

Pesci begins with a bit of misdirection. He takes a beat, as though he’s getting ready to rattle off as many names as he can in the 45 seconds allowed. (Most winners push this limit – when they’re rewarded by the Academy, they punish the audience.) Then he says, “it’s my privilege; thank you,” and walks away before the audience can process what happened. By the time the applause kicks in, he’s on his way back to his seat.

It’s not the most laconic Oscars speech – Alfred Hitchcock’s was shorter, and some winners who accepted as members of groups were nudged out almost entirely – but like David Lynch’s, it’s true to form. Pesci is known as a hard-working introvert. Within a couple of years of his Goodfellas win, he also played a delusional villain in Home Alone and the titular trial lawyer in My Cousin Vinny, in which, respectively, he helped Macauly Culkin and Marisa Tomei shine. Praise is best understood as a byproduct of creative work, not its goal. Take the work seriously and the rewards lightly, and never hog the glory when you could be bringing out the best in others (such a power move).

Pesci checked his privilege way before it was de rigueur. He presumably knows as well as anyone that Hollywood success, even more than success in other fields, is mostly about connections and luck. By the time you’re accepting an Oscar, there’s no way to thank everyone who helped you get there in 45 days, let alone 45 seconds. By not thanking anyone specifically, you can thank everyone.

Life is full of cruelty, disappointment, bad breaks, and bad timing, even (and perhaps especially) if you’re an Oscar-winner. You can’t afford to take it personally or you’ll lose your mind. The only way to prevent this is to refuse to take your good luck too seriously, either. If you don’t get attached to your wins, you liberate yourself to also take your losses in stride.

In the end, we’re all dead and forgotten. Do your work, thank your fans and benefactors for their support, and keep moving.

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