Spalding Gray Quotes

• One of the ways to reincarnate is to tell your story.

  Spalding Gray

  Stories, Way, Storytelling

  51 Copy quote

• I knew I couldn't live in America and I wasn't ready to move to Europe so I moved to an island off the coast of America - New York City .

  Spalding Gray

  Travel, New York, Moving

  26 Copy quote

• I'm kind of this control freak that likes to create his own hells before the real one can get to him

  Spalding Gray

  Real, Likes, Freak

  22 Copy quote

• How theraputic it is to surrond yourself with people stranger than yourself.

  Spalding Gray

  People, Stranger

  17 Copy quote

• Real life has always let me down. That's why I do the monologues. I have always said I would rather tell a life than live a life. But I have to live a life in order to tell one.

  Spalding Gray

  Real, Order, Crafts

  13 Copy quote

• I see [my pen] as an extension of my musculature. It's like being a painter. It's the closest I can get to my breath.

  Spalding Gray

  Painter, Extensions, Breaths

  14 Copy quote

• The only thing I don't doubt is my doubt.

  Spalding Gray

  Doubt

  "Shades of Gray" by Gaby Wood, www.theguardian.com. December 25, 2004.

  12 Copy quote

• When I was in therapy about two years ago, one day I noticed that I hadn't had any children. And I like children at a distance. I wondered if I'd like them up close. I wondered why I didn't have any. I wondered if it was a mistake, or if I'd done it on purpose, or what. And I noticed my therapist didn't have any children either. He had pictures of his cats on the wall. Framed.

  Spalding Gray

  Children, Wall, Mistake

  Spalding Gray (2005). “Swimming to Cambodia”, p.32, Theatre Communications Group

  14 Copy quote

• Everything is contingent, and there is also chaos.

  Spalding Gray

  Chaos, Complexity

  19 Copy quote

• If I can make people laugh it's like being a good lover.

  Spalding Gray

  Good Love, People, Laughing

  13 Copy quote

• I say that I can't make anything up. I think of myself as a collage artist. I'm cutting and pasting memories of my life. And I say, I have to live a life in order to tell a life. I would prefer to tell it because telling you're always in control, you're like God.

  Spalding Gray

  Memories, Cutting, Artist

  8 Copy quote

• I hadn't had a perfect moment yet. And it's very important for me to have perfect moments in exotic countries like that... it kind of lets you know when it's time to go home.

  Spalding Gray

  Country, Travel, Home

  10 Copy quote

• And just as I was climbing into that first-class seat, and wrapping myself in a blanket, just as I was adjusting my pillow behind my head, and having a sip of that champagne, and just as I was bringing down and adjusting my Thai purple sleep mask, I had an inkling. I had a flash. I suddenly thought I knew what it was that had killed Marilyn Monroe.

  Spalding Gray

  Sleep, Climbing, Class

  "Fictional character: Spalding Gray". "Swimming to Cambodia", www.imdb.com. 1987.

  8 Copy quote

• I was darkly convinced that at age 52 I would kill myself because my mother committed suicide at that age. I was fantasizing that she was waiting for me on the other side of the grave.

  Spalding Gray

  Mother, Suicide, Waiting

  14 Copy quote

• He won't fly on the Balinese airline, Garuda, because he won't fly on any airline where the pilots believe in reincarnation.

  Spalding Gray

  Travel, Believe, Pilots

  Spalding Gray (1992). “Monster in a Box”, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• Skiing is better than sex actually, because for me a good round of sex might be seven minutes. Skiing you can do for seven hours.

  Spalding Gray

  Sex, Might, Skiing

  15 Copy quote

• I fantasize about going back to high school with the knowledge I have now. I would shine. I would have a good time, I would have a girlfriend. I think that's where a lot of my pain comes from. I think I never had any teenage years to go back to.

  Spalding Gray

  Girlfriend, Pain, Teenage

  10 Copy quote

• I consulted a therapist at Mass. General. After about 20 minutes, he stopped me and said, 'You're just a big existential garbage pail. Go home and relax.'

  Spalding Gray

  Home, Relax, Garbage

  7 Copy quote

• I refer to jet lag as 'jet-psychosis - there's an old saying that the spirit cannot move faster than a camel.

  Spalding Gray

  Moving, Psychosis, Camels

  11 Copy quote

• I understood once I held a baby in my arms, why some people have the need to keep having them.

  Spalding Gray

  Inspirational, Baby, People

  7 Copy quote

• To be famous is to be stuck in an inflexible place. But at least it is to be stuck with money.

  Spalding Gray

  Stuck

  Spalding Gray (2011). “The Journals of Spalding Gray”, p.64, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• The fact that New York continues in the face of all of the chaos, of the crime, of the madness, you just think that it would just pop and vanish, just explode.

  Spalding Gray

  New York, Thinking, Faces

  11 Copy quote

• I think of New York as a puree and the rest of the United States as vegetable soup.

  Spalding Gray

  New York, Thinking, Vegetables

  9 Copy quote

• All the beautiful waitresses existed like eternal responsibilities.

  Spalding Gray

  Beautiful, Responsibility, Waitress

  Spalding Gray (2011). “The Journals of Spalding Gray”, p.108, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

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