Anne Bogart Quotes (Author of A Director Prepares)

“Listening is a basic ingredient of attention, and it can be learned and

practiced. Listening is fueled by interest and curiosity. It is a discipline

and an action in the world, and the results are nearly magical. Hearing

can restore. To be heard, really heard by another person, is to be healed.”

― Anne Bogart, And Then, You Act: Making Art in an Unpr... See more

“Innovation is made possible by the width and breadth of a person’s rummaging around the world, in traffic with the living and the dead. It is by transgressing the boundaries that separate us that we begin to find solutions to the world’s present complexities because inclusion and incorporation of “the other” creates the conditions for innovation.”... See more

“We are debris arrangers. Equipped with what we have inherited, we try to make a life, make a living and make art. We are assemblers. We forge received parts into meaningful compositions. This state of affairs is our plight and our destiny, but it also offers the opportunity to find meaning as well as to find communion with others.”

― Anne Bogart, ... See more

“Every creative act involves a leap into the void. The leap has to occur at the right moment and yet the time for the leap is never prescribed. In the midst of a leap, there are no guarantees. To leap can often cause acute embarrassment. Embarrassment is a partner in the creative act—a key collaborator.”

― Anne Bogart, A Director Prepares

“If what Picasso proposed is true, that the first stroke on the canvas is always a mistake, it is best to get on with the mistake, without delay, earlier rather than later. Write one sentence, make one choice or point at something and say “Yes.” And then, as the process unfolds, and as long as I keep at it and stay attentive and resolute, making ad... See more

“You cannot create results. You can only create conditions in which something might happen.”

― Anne Bogart