Kelsey Grammer: What I've Learned

[Brian Damage]

The Emmy winner opens up about why you should never lie, how death can affect you decades later, and why a good tomato is worth pursuing

By Cal Fussman

Prayer is when you talk to God. Meditation is when you're listening. Playing the piano allows you to do both at the same time.

I don't think dessert is worth it if it's actually good for you.

The greatest sin is judgment without knowledge.

I want to speak seventeen languages. When you think like that, you'll be consumed by failure. I'm haunted daily by what I don't know.

I had one bad teacher in elementary school. First grade. All the rest were wonderful. But my first-grade teacher lacked compassion. There was a very specific event: I asked her to be excused several times. That's how we spoke in our family. She asked me, "Number one or number two?" I had no knowledge of what that meant. We didn't talk like that in my family. She proceeded to say that I was being a smart aleck. She said, "If you don't answer me, you're not going." I had no idea. So I urinated on the floor.

I didn't have a divine intervention that said, This is your calling. There was one thing I loved a little bit more than surfing — and that was acting.

I've survived the Trojan War. I've been a submarine captain. I've been a psychiatrist. A murderer. I've been a fool. I've tasted all those things. That's a very rich life.

The simplest definition of art is a true lie.

The audience is the equal sign in the equation. They tell you what it's worth.

If I expect respect, I will offer it.

I don't think there's a universal reason for drug addiction or alcoholism. I do believe in an axiomatic truth: Addiction is the result of unresolved grief.

The hardest part of stopping is stopping.

Have I been overpaid? No. Have I been underpaid? No.

A good tomato is like a prize.

Kids will ask the right questions at the right time.

Part of what's great about America is that you are not consigned to one existence. You can change your birthright. In fact, one of your obligations is to widen the scope of what your life would have been if you'd been born into it and stayed there.

Different things made Cheers and Frasier special. Both of them, though, were honest. It was the old Shakespeare thing: Hold the mirror up to life.

I had the blessing of a heart attack just last year. For me, it was like two elephants standing on my chest. I saw it as a blessing almost immediately. It was almost like the shedding of a skin. It helped me to discard things I didn't need to carry anymore.

There's almost nothing better than a baguette and a pound of salami.

The human experience reflected in Shakespeare is probably the most specific and uplifting language that we have.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. Okay, I can figure that out. I'm in charge. It was very empowering in a way. You are in charge of your own life. That's a good lesson.

I didn't know my dad very well. I spent about three weeks with him when I was twelve, just after my granddad died. That's really all I knew of him. He woke up one night while I was still up and said, C'mon into the kitchen with me. He pulled everything in the refrigerator out and made some tacos. They were the best tacos I ever had. He was killed about a year and a half later.

My dad's death didn't impact me until I was thirty-eight, which was his age. I got to know my father more in my thirty-eighth year than I ever did before.

My sister's murder was devastating, life changing. I was truly lost by that event, and it took me twenty years to overcome, or at least to put in a place where it could no longer hurt me. I'm still saddened by it, but it doesn't hurt me now like it did.

No day-to-day mishaps or indignities can really compromise your sense of self after you've survived a deep tragedy.

My two stepbrothers died in a freak accident. They were snorkeling and were attacked by sharks. One was never found. The other was found washed up on shore. I prefer adversity that I face head-on and can see coming, so at least I get a fair shake.

What I can control is how I react. I can't control anything else.

A child is a reinvigorating experience. It almost does feel like immortality, but not in the way people think. It reminds us there are universal truths that are most simply seen through the mind of a young person.

I was brought up to never lie. Sure, I have. But in the final mix, the lies I've told are far outweighed by the truths I've lived.

It's the way of the world that something else will come up that has to be resolved. But I await each day with anticipation and optimism, to quote Auden, to "face with all our courage, what is now to be."



Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/what...#ixzz0bPaUkNQl