Robert Lepage

“Often, particularly towards the end of the process, I think of myself less as a theatre director and more as someone who just directs the traffic. My job is to move the ideas and bits of the show into the places where they work best. Sometimes my job is also to say, 'No.'”

“I never questioned if I was effeminate or not. That didn't matter in the theatre.”

“Making art in big cities is often frustrating and difficult. It's why artists are drawn to smaller places.”

“I studied as an actor at the theatre conservatoire in Quebec, but by the time I got to my third year, I was more interested in directing. There's more to it than helping actors get round a stage: it's a wonderful way of telling stories.”

“Nothing is worse than having your dreams come true.”

“My naivety is to assume people will think there's compassion and solidarity in wanting to play someone even though we are not them.”

“In everything I've done, I've always tried to make room for indigenous people, to include them.”

“My taste comes from when I was 12 years old and saw Genesis or Laurie Anderson or some performance artist who had put paint on himself. I've seen a lot of theater, but that's not what woke up my taste to become a director; nontheatrical things were much more theatrical than the theater I was seeing.”

“Chaos is a good thing.”

“Artists always try to make something that is going to be relevant and up-to-the-minute.”

“I can't really define myself as a dramatist or as an actor or as someone who is interested in music.”

“During the tour of 'Circulations,' we spent a lot of time in Canadian Chinatowns. I was fascinated by the idea that you can cross the road and enter this dream world, this vision of China.”

“I admire people who can spend every aspect of their life in one discipline and really go all the way. I feel the only way I could achieve some type of excellence is if I connect to other people, other disciplines.”

“Opera should be a place for art forms to meet. I've worked a lot with Peter Gabriel; his music isn't operatic, but he creates big, popular gatherings to which architecture, dance, and music are all invited.”

“Writing is very much perceived as something distinct from performance. I don't see it like that.”

“The same critics who destroyed 'Seven Streams' when we opened in Edinburgh - and yes, it was horrible - called it one of the most important shows of the 21st century six years later in London.”

“There's nothing sadder than when things happen the way you've planned them, because we don't have a lot of imagination, you know.”

“Why is it that I can remember so easily the lyrics to the opening theme song of 'Gilligan's Island?' Why do I remember these trivial things, and I can't remember the names of important collaborators?”

“I'm not good at doing show business; I'm a theatre person. I don't reveal anything about my life.”

“I was brought up by a father and mother who were radically different.”