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" After my bar mitzvah, I started to assimilate, to really not pay attention to my roots. The anti-Semitic experiences of my youth had been very painful. You try to put all that in the past and become a person of the world. I think that's the right thing to do. But it's not right to leave out who you really are. That's a tragedy. "

Joel Grey

Think

Roots

Past

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" I really did start a whole way of thinking about musical theater. "

" It can take me forever to choose the right coffee cup in the morning. And it does make a difference! "

Joel Grey

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

" I don't like to bad-mouth other shows, but I was very disturbed after seeing 'Starlight Express.' It had very little to do with musical comedy as I know it. It had to do with sound and spectacle and records and technology and amplification. "

" Looking back now, I can see that my dad was a real fighter. A lot of people thought, 'Why don't you keep the Jewish stuff quiet?' They were anti-Semitic Jews. People who were afraid. People who came here and made it and anglicized themselves and didn't want to associate with their past. "

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

" I love that moment just before the curtain goes up, whether I'm sitting in the audience or standing backstage. It's full of expectation. It's a thrill that's unequaled anywhere. "

" Theater is the most important thing in life for me. "

Joel Grey

Important

The Most Important

" 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. "

" You can be taking two steps forward as an actor, but if a movie doesn't make money, you might as well be taking two steps backwards. It's all about economics. "

" My dad would take me downtown, and I'd stand backstage and watch him in the vaudeville pit band. I was 6 or 7. He was a musician, a band leader, a wonderful clarinetist and saxophone player. "

Joel Grey

Watch

Band

" I'm always interested in the challenge of doing something new. "

" 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. "

" I'm crazy about surprises. I love chance. "

" I am concerned about the musical theater, selfishly, because I love it. "

Joel Grey

I Am

Musical Theater

" Larry Hagman and I are very old friends. "

" I really didn't feel that my motion picture career was going the way I wanted it to go. "

Joel Grey

Career

Picture

" Satisfying as that 'Cabaret' role was, it is not the only thing I do. But Hollywood is somewhat limited in its perspective about what it is you do or don't do. "

" When my father came out on stage wearing a big cowboy hat and a shirt lettered 'Bar Mitzvah Ranch' to sing 'Home on the Range' in Yiddish, it was his way of saying, 'I want to be an American.' "

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

" I always sort of saw myself as different from a musician. "

" Acting always affects every part of your life because it's such a solitary, lonely, and thrilling circumstance that you're taking on someone else's character and that responsibility. It's exhausting. "

" There's a lot going on in the world that's very disturbing: rewriting the Holocaust; pseudo-historians rewriting history itself. And we're dealing with a terrorist mentality that involves whole nations. "

" Collaboration is about listening to someone else and adding your own feelings about that thought. "