Robert Lepage

My father had barely any education. He could hardly write or count. But his great pride was that he was perfectly bilingual. In the household, he entertained this idea that we had to speak both languages.

There is a way to grow old and still have dignity.

A show is good when there is a meeting of time and space, when time and space become irrelevant.

In Grade 2, when we had to do a presentation in front of the class, I'd always do things about Ireland or Italy. I could draw maps; I could name all the capitals: I was completely drawn to other lands. I discovered with time that it's a thirst for other people, for otherness, for something fascinating and mysterious.

I don't think there is any kind of magic about what I do. All of the connections are there, somewhere in the subconscious or in the collective unconscious. If I let the elements speak to each other, then these coincidences will happen. And they do happen. They happen all the time.

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.

I need to have many things cooking at the same time.

The first time someone stood up in front of the fire and told the story while illustrating it with shadows on the walls of the quarry, that was the birth of theater.

A lot of people hated every moment of my 'Ring.' And a lot of people who had never been to an opera bought subscriptions to the next season.

We tend to forget that in those days before the Internet and HBO and Imax and 3-D cinema, opera was the thing. Opera and theatre. If you were a man of the world and you mingled among the happy few, you would be at the opera.

The Blue Dragon' uses very filmic language and involves a lot of technology. It is more cinematic than theatrical and was inspired by comic strips and graphic novels.

Technology can become a crutch. Sometimes it's there just to hide behind when you're shy of what you're trying to say.