Robert Wilson Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“There are schools teaching 'stage decoration' as a subject, and they actually call it that. I say: 'Burn those schools!'”

“When we look back at the Mayans or ancient Egypt, we look at their art.”

“What was very interesting to me about Clementine Hunter's work is that she couldn't read or write, and she has recorded history of the plantation life and the southern part of the U.S. - the cotton harvests, pecan picking, washing clothes, funerals, marriages - in pictures.”

“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.”

“If you take a Baroque commode and put a Baroque clock on top of it, maybe it is not so interesting as when you put a computer on top of it. Then you see both items in a new way.”

“Some years ago, I was invited to speak in Houston, Texas. They said I was a founder of 'postmodern theatre'. So I said to my office, 'This is ridiculous for me to go and speak about postmodern theatre when I don't know what it means, but... they're paying me a lot of money, so I'll go.'”

“The first year I was in New York, I met Martha Graham. She said, 'Well, Mr. Wilson, what do you want to do in life?' I was 21 years old, and I said, 'I have no idea.' And she said, 'If you work long enough and hard enough, you'll find something.'”

“When I was 12 years old, I went to Natchitoches, La.; it was summer vacation with my family. We visited a plantation, Melrose. And I met an Afro-American woman who was a painter. I already had some idea of what I wanted to do in life, and one of the things that interested me was painting.”

“I always thought of the English landscape as being English gardens.”

“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.”