Tradition itself, in times of dogmatism and dogmatic revolution, is a revolutionary force which must be safeguarded.

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.

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.

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 am very familiar with the sound of loss.

There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that you ain't learned nothing.

When finger point at moon, don't look at finger or you'll miss the moon.

Lenny Bruce genius was the unique ability to investigate hypocrisy and expose social inequities in a street rap that was really a form of poetry.

I'd say I've gone to grad school for comedy being on "Community."

Nixon was a Southern Rim President, and so antipathetic to the old guard.

Soon I will be an old, white-haired lady, into whose lap someone places a baby, saying, "Smile, Grandma!" - I, who myself so recently was photographed on my grandmother's lap.

There are people today who look to fear to take us out of fear. But I believe that there are many, many more people who would look to love.

[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.

It is the Lord's Day, and I do believe that cheerful hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His sight.