Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The mind is a muscle.
I want to work with Jay-Z.
Chairs are like sculpture.
I do still collect chairs.
I'm an artist, not a philosopher.
Light is architectural. It is sculptural.
If we lose our culture, we lose our memory.
My work is formal, not based on psychology.
There hasn't been a great romance in my life.
I learned loudness from working with Lou Reed.
I'm supposed to be the guy who hates naturalism.
In my theater, I'm not trying to change the world.
I think that I've always been a kind of structured person.
In Europe, unlike the States, they have a cultural policy.
When works get too intellectual, they lose their intensity.
I start any work the same way. I start a rehearsal with silence.
If you slow things down, you notice things you hadn't seen before.
I always thought of the English landscape as being English gardens.
I usually stay in on Sunday nights. I'm not much of a party person.
The French, not the Americans, commissioned 'Einstein on the Beach.'
When we look back at the Mayans or ancient Egypt, we look at their art.
The landscape of Texas is in all my work. It's that light; it's that sky.
My work has always dealt with a kind of space that allows one to daydream.
I had no idea I was going to have a career in the theater. I did not plan it.
I've always been attracted to classic patterns in architecture, music and drama.
I've always thought abstractly - through theme and variations rather than narrative.
My theater is slow and calm, yet my life is fast and hectic, going in all directions.
I think it's just my nature. I can't work on one thing. I have to work on many things.
My method is much like choreography. I don't sit at a table. I work in a room with people.
As a very young man growing up in Texas, usually I got a shotgun or cowboy boots for Christmas.
Increasingly, I find myself drawn to classic forms - to Euripides, Shakespeare and grand opera.
I think people are looking for an alternative to the fast pace of everyday life and entertainment.
Christopher Knowles, Buechner, Heiner Mueller, Burroughs, Chekhov, Shakespeare - it's all one body of work.
It's important that we have the traditional operas and the repertory, but we should also have something new.
When you're playing King Lear, you have to have a little humour, or you will have no tragedy when the king dies.
If you see the sunset, does it have to mean something? If you hear the birds singing does it have to have a message?
I collect rocks from all over the world. I have a ring of stones that date to 3500 B.C. It's like a little Stonehenge.
There are schools teaching 'stage decoration' as a subject, and they actually call it that. I say: 'Burn those schools!'
New York is very provincial. They're very cut-off; they don't have an awareness of so much that is going on in the world.
I grew up in a town where there were no galleries, no museums, no theaters - a very religious, ultraconservative community.
One of the few things that will remain of this time is what artists are doing. They are the journal and the diary of our time.
Everything in Wagner's work - the music, the acting, the staging - stemmed from the text. Everything served to interpret the text.
I never studied theatre; I learned it by doing it. If I had studied theatre, I would not be making the kind of theatre I am making.
Actors always start with the voice and language. That's wrong. They should start with the body. The body is an actor's most important resource.
By giving the leadership to the private sector in a capitalistic society, we're going to measure the value of art by how many products we can sell.
The first thing you must know as an actor or director is the space you will inhabit. See the architecture; imagine where things can happen in space.
I think that opera in Europe is 30 years ahead of America. There is a broader range of material presented to the public. They value contemporary opera.
Counterpoint is difficult. I have been doing it since the beginning of my career. But it is not just taking any opposite. It is finding the right opposite.
I think by drawing, so I'll draw or diagram everything from a piece of furniture to a stage gesture. I understand things best when they're in graphics, not words.
I did a masterclass at the Juilliard and asked the students, 'Can you stand?' 'Sure.' 'Can you walk?' 'Sure.' They couldn't. They had never really thought about it.