Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Good theatre draws the energies out of the place where it is and gives it back as joie de vivre.
I want to tell stories about Europe - I feel profoundly European, I don't feel like an American.
The thing that I have a horror of is ideological theatre - Shakespeare never told us how to think.
If you feel very deeply about something, it's not possible to sacrifice your integrity about that.
When you make new musicals, you have the great freedom and the great burden that it can be changed.
I was the first woman to win a Tony for directing, but the second woman came along five minutes later.
I don't believe you should interfere with any classic for reasons of religious or political correctness.
I would love to direct a play. But I think when people look at me they see music and dancing and singing.
I think [Guettel is] probably one of our most special writers now, pushing things in ways that are unique.
The soul wanders in the dark, until it finds love. And so, wherever our love goes, there we find our soul.
We may pretend we are basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.
The stage is life, music, beautiful girls, legs, breasts, not talk or intellectualism or dried-up academics.
Directing Marilyn Monroe was like directing Lassie. You needed fourteen takes to get each one of them right.
Any scene in Shakespeare can be vulgarised almost out of recognition with the wish to have a modern concept.
Amy Morton is a machine. If she misses a show it's because someone amputated her leg and she's looking for it.
You cannot hide; your growth as an artist is not separate from your growth as a human being: it is all visible.
It is not theatre that is indispensable, but something quite different. To cross the frontiers between you and me.
It is a miracle a musical gets up because of all the different departments and how much it costs. It is a miracle.
I could make a film in front of a wall if I knew how to find the data of man's true humanity and how to express it.
I live in the present. When I finish a film, it is behind me. My reward is in my work, not in a lot of old memories.
Tradition itself, in times of dogmatism and dogmatic revolution, is a revolutionary force which must be safeguarded.
If you think there is anything in theater that objectively exists without your point of view attached, you are wrong.
It is true that I visualize music and, as I visualize music, I have some sort of story running in my head, all the time.
I think of myself as actually kind of prudish and girly, but I don't know if a lot of other people would see me that way.
I stopped acting when I was 19. The only time I acted again was during the war, when there were no other Nazis available.
I had a feeling about Shakespeare's soliloquies, that there should be a real exchange between the actor and the audience.
I'm not sure I have a role model per se, but I do deeply admire every woman who raises children and has to walk for water.
There are so many forms, I believe people are bright enough to make their own laws, more subtle ones than we've had before.
Let me die the moment my love dies. Let me not outlive my own capacity to love. Let me die still loving, and so, never die.
A lot of performing instincts are involved in the business of direction, but so is analysis and having a sense of literature.
You can be the world's greatest hero or its most mild-mannered citizen, but the only person who can write your story...is you.
Actors should arouse a sense of wonder because of their ability to exceed what the spectators can envision ever being able to do.
Our contention has always been that Shakespeare is our greatest living author. If he can survive a season on Broadway, he must be.
An icon painter starts not with Jesus Christ but by finding earth and rubbing. Now what is earth, what are you rubbing in directing?
I'm not saying that it's wrong to make huge Hollywood films but it's just a different kind of feeling, a different sort of pleasure.
Most of my films seem to be about people bewildered by the world around them, who don't fit into it and are trying to understand it.
I always say that you can't be afraid to ask the question. What's the worst that could happen? The answer could be "no" and you go on.
I always believe it's better to have 30 imaginations working on a project, rather than one imagination telling the other 29 what to do.
Joan of Arc should be played as a "pain in the ass" and how do I know she was a "pain in the ass"? ... because they burn her at the end.
To be violent is the ultimate laziness. War always seems a great effort, but it is the easy way. And false non-violence is also an idol.
I'm really happy when I'm immersed in the art of it all - immersed in the music, the dance, the visual. Tapping into joy - it saves you.
The camera kind of finds things that the naked eye can't even see. By moving in a certain way, you're already telling part of the story.
I can't talk about every single film I made. It's not my way to go back into the past and to look at my old pictures and to discuss them.
You have to live to the responsibility of the person who has won, which is even greater than the responsibility of a person who has lost.
Theater, for me, is no longer a conversation about how we destroy each other; it's much more about how we may be destroying everyone else.
I consider myself a pretty good extemporaneous speaker. Even though I don't like speaking in front of people, I don't think I'm bad at it.
It seems that boredom is one of the greatest discoveries of our time. If so, there's no question but that he must be considered a pioneer.
The first move toward the determination of the direction of my art was the fortunate invention of plans for Blok’s wonder The Puppet Show.
Every form of theatre has something in common with a visit to the doctor. On the way out, one should always feel better than on the way in.
I believe in serendipity, but I also believe there are times when you have to be the one who lines up everything so it can fall into place.