It takes a long while for a director to cease thinking in terms of the result he desires and instead concentrate on discovering the source of energy in the actor from which true impulses arise.

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space, whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.

A stage space has two rules: (1) Anything can happen and (2) Something must happen.

Drama is exposure; it is confrontation; it is contradiction and it leads to analysis, construction, recognition and eventually to an awakening of understanding.

The work of rehearsal is looking for meaning and then making it meaningful.

The work of a director can be summed up in two very simple words. Why and How.

Nothing in theatre has any meaning before or after. Meaning is now.

A word does not start as a word – it is an end product which begins as an impulse, stimulated by attitude and behaviour which dictates the need for expression.

The closeness of reality and the distance of myth, because if there is no distance you aren't amazed, and if there is no closeness you aren't moved.

In the theatre, every form once born is mortal; every form must be reconceived, and its new conception will bear the marks of all the influences that surround it.

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage.

fights you on patriotic principles he robs you on business principles he enslaves you on imperial principles.

I aspire to a poetry of great formal integrity, deep passion and high intellect, and I have many models for how to do that.

Change isn't always good. Sometimes changing things is a terrible mistake.

Unless you are oblivious to your own suffering, you have no right to be oblivious to other people's suffering.

I don't study to know more, but to ignore less.

African art is functional, it serves a purpose. It's not a dormant. It's not a means to collect the largest cheering section. It should be healing, a source a joy. Spreading positive vibrations.

I don't know. I had to be something, didn't I?

There is no solitude more dreadful for a stranger, an isolated man, than a great city; so many thousands of men and not one friend.

Men can comfortably claim credit for what they do as long as they don't veer into arrogance. For women, taking credit comes at a real social and professional cost.

My politics are of a practical kind - the integrity of the country, the supremacy of the Federal government, an honorable peace, or none at all.