THANKS VERY MUCH AND GOODNIGHT: Last Lines From Works by Spalding Gray (1941 - 2004)

By Joshua Wolf Shenk

"I walked into C.W. Cartwright's office, and he said, 'Well, my friend, can you promise us that you'll buckle down?' And I said, 'Yes, yes. I'll buckle down. I'll buckle down. I'll do it, I'll buckle down.'"

-- Sex and Death to the Age of 14

"I hung up the phone and thought: I wonder if I'll ever get in touch with any normal people?"

-- 47 Beds

"This whole process of writing these stories down has been very healing, to the extent that it has projected me into a future. And although this cannot fully assure a future, it has at least created one for me, as I watch it race ahead before me."

-- preface, Vintage Press edition of Sex and Death to the Age of 14

"And Renee and I went home and I ate big fish and I drank a bottle of wine and I smoked a cigar. And I ate and I drank and I smoked everything that could make me blind."

-- Gray's Anatomy

"Coming in at the end of the day, I thought, I've come back to an old place in a new way. I thought I was going to self-destruct and instead I helped bring new life into the world. I gave myself a big high five, and I thought, You know, I've returned to New England and I'm no longer a puritan, if you define a puritan as someone who is constantly haunted by the sneaky suspicion that someone, somewhere else, is having a good time."

-- It's a Slippery Slope

"I carry him in and lay him beside Kathie, who is now awake. Theo bellies up to the milk bar and begins to tank up. He's lying between Kathie and me and he's kicking me while he sucks and I am going to sleep. I am going to sleep kicked by my son."

-- Morning, Noon and Night

"I suddenly thought I knew what killed Marilyn Monroe."

--  Swimming to Cambodia

"Now, where do I go from here?"

--  Terrors of Pleasure

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