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Robert Wilson Quotes

Powerful Robert Wilson for Daily Growth

If you see the sunset, does it have to mean something? If you hear the birds singing does it have to have a message?

- Robert Wilson

Mean, See, Does, Singing

I had dinner with Marlene Dietrich in the early 1970s. I went to pick her up and she had someone with her, a dreadful man. He was writing a book about her, and he said to her, 'You're so cold when you perform,' and she said, 'You didn't listen to the voice.' She said the difficulty was to place the voice with the face.

- Robert Wilson

Book, Voice, About, Marlene

The landscape of Texas is in all my work. It's that light; it's that sky.

- Robert Wilson

Work, Light, Sky, All My Work

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.

- Robert Wilson

Southern, Part, Very, Recorded

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.'

- Robert Wilson

Texas, Some, About, Postmodern

Everything in Wagner's work - the music, the acting, the staging - stemmed from the text. Everything served to interpret the text.

- Robert Wilson

Work, Music, Wagner, Stemmed

At the end of the 1960s, I was part of the downtown theatrical movement in New York that was making work in alleyways, garages, gyms, churches, non-traditional spaces. The idea was to get away from the illusion of the conventional theatre. But then I thought, what's wrong with illusion?

- Robert Wilson

Thought, Away, Theatrical, Churches

Usually in theater, the visual repeats the verbal. The visual dwindles into decoration. But I think with my eyes. For me, the visual is not an afterthought, not an illustration of the text. If it says the same thing as the words, why look? The visual must be so compelling that a deaf man would sit though the performance fascinated.

- Robert Wilson

I Think, Same Thing, Repeats, Illustration

As a very young man growing up in Texas, usually I got a shotgun or cowboy boots for Christmas.

- Robert Wilson

Cowboy, Young, Very, Shotgun

One of the few things that will remain of this time is what artists are doing. They are the journal and the diary of our time.

- Robert Wilson

Doing, Will, Remain, Journal

I've always thought abstractly - through theme and variations rather than narrative.

- Robert Wilson

Thought, Through, Always, Variations

I don't see anyone for the first hour and a half that I'm awake. I don't like to talk, and I don't like to hear any sounds. People know not to bother me! I use that time to read, and make lists and notes of things I have to do later in the day.

- Robert Wilson

Notes, Use, Half, Hour And A Half

I grew up in a town where there were no galleries, no museums, no theaters - a very religious, ultraconservative community.

- Robert Wilson

Town, Religious, Very, Theaters

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.

- Robert Wilson

Interesting, New, Maybe, Baroque

The French, not the Americans, commissioned 'Einstein on the Beach.'

- Robert Wilson

Beach, Einstein, French

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

- Robert Wilson

Burn, Call, Actually, Decoration

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.

- Robert Wilson

Woman, Some, Idea, Vacation

I met a 13-year-old black child, Raymond, who had never been to school and had never learnt any words, yet it seemed to me that he was intelligent. It became apparent after a short period that Raymond thought in terms of visual signs and movements.

- Robert Wilson

Thought, Been, Became, Apparent

Chairs are like sculpture.

- Robert Wilson

Sculpture, Like, Chairs

I do still collect chairs.

- Robert Wilson

Still, Collect, Chairs

It's important that we have the traditional operas and the repertory, but we should also have something new.

- Robert Wilson

Important, New, Traditional, Repertory

I think that I've always been a kind of structured person.

- Robert Wilson

Think, Always, Been, Structured

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.

- Robert Wilson

Think, Opera, I Think, Broader

New York is very provincial. They're very cut-off; they don't have an awareness of so much that is going on in the world.

- Robert Wilson

New, Going, Very, Provincial

My method is much like choreography. I don't sit at a table. I work in a room with people.

- Robert Wilson

Work, Like, Method, Choreography

Counterpoint is difficult. I have been doing it since the beginning of my career. But it is not just taking any opposite. It is finding the right opposite.

- Robert Wilson

Career, Doing, Been, Counterpoint

I try to present something that is full of time. Not timeless, but full of time. I never like a work where we try to update it, but it's still not interesting to see a work that is dated. If one is successful, then a work can be full of time. And time is very complex.

- Robert Wilson

Like, Very, Still, Time And Time

Increasingly, I find myself drawn to classic forms - to Euripides, Shakespeare and grand opera.

- Robert Wilson

Classic, Opera, Increasingly, Forms

I think people are looking for an alternative to the fast pace of everyday life and entertainment.

- Robert Wilson

Think, Pace, I Think, Everyday

Christopher Knowles, Buechner, Heiner Mueller, Burroughs, Chekhov, Shakespeare - it's all one body of work.

- Robert Wilson

Work, Body, Shakespeare, Chekhov

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