[from an interview in 1998] If you said to me, "Theodore, we pay you $20,000 and you perform at Town Hall." I might be able to do it and afterwards, simply drop dead. The alternative is to lie safely in my bed and don't perform and have to wait four or five years in utter loneliness and in great pain and confusion. So I might take the risk to do it once and say, "O.K., so I die after the show." But it's better to have the applause and die than to lie here for the next five years and end up in a nursing home forever and ever and ever.

[from an interview done in 1998] I'm in perpetual pain. I have arthritis, you know and, uh, I don't want to really go into it. People are not interested in my woes. They say old people talk about nothing but what ails them, you know. I lost many friends by talking incessantly about my pain. They're not interested in my pain.

To be Brother Theodore is no bed of roses. I'm the bride at every funeral. I'm the corpse at every wedding. Each time I look into the mirror I burst into tears. Sure, sure. I burst into tears.