Julie Taymor

"I would never do something with just puppets. . . But I like the things puppets allow you to do. I had this puppet Dinah Donewell, and she had this hand puppet named Mr. Pleaser. He was her lap dog who was constantly under her skirt. Now if you did that with actors, people would be offended. But in this case, so what? It was a puppet with a puppet."

"Spider-Man is a genuine American myth with a dark, primal power … but it’s also got this great superhero, and — hey! — he can fly through the theater at 40 miles an hour. It’s got villains, it’s got skyscrapers, it’s colorful, it’s Manhattan. I knew it would be a challenge, but I saw the inherent theatricality in it, and I couldn’t resist."

"Where I live is not necessarily in New York City. Thats where my apartment is, but I live in Mexico, or I live in Indonesia. I live in Japan. I feel as comfortable in those other cultures, because, in a way, Im always uncomfortable. I cant explain that, exactly, but I put myself into situations where Im forced to do something, to create, to respond, to see differently."

"I understood really the power of art to transform. I think transformation became the main word in my life. Transformation because you dont want to just put a mirror in front of people and say, here, look at yourself. What do you see? You want to have a skewed mirror. You want a mirror that says you didnt know you could see the back of your head. You didnt know that you could amount cubistic see almost all the same aspects at the same time. It allows human beings to step out of their lives and to revisit it and maybe find something different about it."

"Im not one of these people that go, "Oh well, Im just going to do my art and I dont give a shit what anybody thinks." I dont feel that way. I really, really love to have people honestly be moved and inspired. And whether its just here or just here — its always better if its the both. Thats why Shakespeare is so great, because he gets you from the gut to the heart to the head, and thats what I aspire to do, more than anything."

"When I was 14 or 13 or 15 I went to Sri Lanka on the Experiment in International Living for a summer. I wanted to travel. And going outside of my own culture and traveling and seeing my own world from a foreign perspective is a big part of my life and who I am. Thats what I was talking about earlier, is stepping outside of yourself and examining yourself with a different perspective is very important, and its important to do as an artist for others."

"Julie Taymors definitely a magician. And I think thats what you call a person who, even though they put the rabbit in the hat, is really surprised when it comes out: thats her."

"Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry. … A lot of what I do in theater is cinematic, and a lot of what I do in film is theatrical, but there are different rules to it. … each art form makes me more interested in the other art form because I try and bring in those techniques and those ideas and put them into a different way of using them."

"Even though she is enduringly fond of her creations, Ms. Taymor never operates any of the puppets herself. "I cant do everything," she said. … Becoming renowned for puppets is not easy — finding a new galaxy or making the draw at Wimbledon is easier. … People sometimes sum her up simply as a puppeteer, which aggravates her to no end. She prefers to be thought of as a writer and director who happens to use puppets. American culture, she believes, does not pay due homage to the idea of the puppet. … She believes it might be better to allude to her puppets as "kinetic sculpture."

"I love it when people say "What a horrible, lousy idea." I think thats great … I hate the comfort zone … I dont think that anything thats really creative can be done without danger and risk."

"We always write stories of tragedies because thats how we reach our human depth. How we get to the other side of it. We look at the cruelty, the darkness and horrific events that happened in our life whether it be a miscarriage or a husband who is not faithful. Then you find this ability to transcend. And that is called the passion, like the passion of Christ. You could call this the passion of Frida Kahlo, in a way. When I talk about passion, and Im not a religious person, but I absolutely am drawn and attracted to the power of religious art because it gets at that most extreme emotion of the human experience."

"I cant design a mask and say to someone else, "Just do it." Its partly because Im a better sculptor than I am a drawer. Considering the amount of time it would take me to draw exactly what I want, I might as well sculpt it. I paint most of it too. Its incredibly time consuming so I end up turning down a lot of jobs I want to do."