Quotes from Joel Grey

If you don't tell the whole truth about yourself, life is a ridiculous exercise.

You are either visual or you're not.

I was traumatized by a lot of childhood stuff. I felt that I was bad somewhere, starting with my birth.

I don't look like Brad Pitt.

I spent 15 years of not being able to get a job creating a role on Broadway.

I was so successful in Cleveland, and we moved to Los Angeles, and there was nothing for me to do. All of a sudden, from being a success, I was a has-been at 13.

I never thought I would sing or dance - ever, ever, ever. My idea was to be Laurence Olivier or Peter Lorre or some great classical actor. I thought I'd be a character actor.

My father was a musician and wanted me to study piano. I had no interest.

I love 'Cabaret' and 'George M!' They're both incredible as far as I'm concerned.

There's a civility that has always been a part of me.

I'm about possibilities and about surprises and the life force.

I'm crazy about surprises. I love chance.

When I was eight, I went to the theatre, and I remember looking at the stage afterward and pointing and saying, 'I want to do that.' I don't think that's ever changed.

There was always this idea that I would work on Shakespeare and some of the other classics, but it never came to be.

'Cabaret' was the most commercial success that I've been involved in.

A lot of people have problems thinking of you doing more than one thing. If you do one thing, then you couldn't possibly do another thing well. Of course, we know that's not so.

That's what people forget about, is that when things are very, very powerful in a sad way, they have that possibility of also being over-the-top, hysterically funny.

My dad was a really funny, really talented guy who had a great success in a limited audience. But from him, I learned that he always felt the audience was entitled to 150 per cent. If he was performing at an event, he'd keep playing until the last person had finished dancing.

I'm enormously sympathetic to talented people who have few roles to choose from.

I worked with a lot of leading ladies: Bebe Neuwirth, Anne Rankin, Bernadette Peters, Liza Minnelli. They're all phenomenal talents.

I saw Lee J. Cobb in 'Death of a Salesman' when I was about 15, and I couldn't get up from my seat in the theater; I was so... I was weeping, and I was upset. And I find that people are still like that in a similar circumstance in a theater today, where they just can't get up. It's too heartbreaking.

I was accepted to UCLA, but at the same time, I had a job offer at Chicago's Chez Paree nightclub. My father, being a practical man, felt I should take the job.

My mother named me after her favorite actor, Joel McCrea, and dressed and presented me as her avatar. I'm sure she wanted to be a performer, but when that was impossible, I was her next best shot.

I was totally delighted, interested in, and amused by my stint on 'Voyager.'