I haven't become a satanist, but I am fascinated by the character of the devil.

Everybody loves Vegas, and everybody puts it down, especially intellectuals and artists. We have to rub our feet on it, but we're all secretly thrilled to be there.

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

When we work on a new theatre piece, we improvise a lot. But it's the opposite in opera, where everything is fixed.

In everything I've done, I've always tried to make room for indigenous people, to include them.

I can't really define myself as a dramatist or as an actor or as someone who is interested in music.

With the social media phenomenon, where people's opinions inform so much of what we do with our lives, where the number of 'likes' decides what we should program, I cringe.

Cirque du Soleil distinguished itself by being a circus with no animals. Before then, circus was partly about showing how man can tame other species.

Reading fairytales to children expands their imaginations.

The real writing of a piece comes only when you are performing it. It is why I like theatre. In film and TV, the image is locked forever, but in theatre, there is constant change; each performance is part of the writing process.

Why is it that I can remember so easily the lyrics to the opening theme song of 'Gilligan's Island?' Why do I remember these trivial things, and I can't remember the names of important collaborators?

I'm trying to tell history with a capital H through histories with a small h. It moves people, because you know in your own personal relationships, your own story, there's an echo to a much larger reality.

We have a tendency in Quebec - and I include myself in this - to describe ourselves using the past. We're always nostalgic.

I admire people who can spend every aspect of their life in one discipline and really go all the way. I feel the only way I could achieve some type of excellence is if I connect to other people, other disciplines.

Chaos is a good thing.

I had been warned by other directors that opera is hell. The singers don't want to do what you want.

I never thought of my father when I was growing up. Truly. He was a strong, silent man who worked hard to support his family.

I was a privileged observer to be there when Celine Dion opened at Caesars Palace and then the second Gulf War started. It was an odd thing to see the impact both events had on Vegas. The place was riding high after Celine, but overnight, once war was declared, it was deserted.

Making art in big cities is often frustrating and difficult. It's why artists are drawn to smaller places.

I've always been a little scared of technology, which is why I explore it.

A puppet, for example, is just a piece of wood, a couple of rivets, but put them together, and if you know how to do it, and the audience's imagination joins in with this, then a miracle will come out of that machine. That is what we and the audience do in the theatre - we create miracles in that space.

Nothing is worse than having your dreams come true.

We should never overestimate an audience's culture, but we should never underestimate their intelligence.

All of Vegas is false. There's a false Paris, a false Venice, a false Baghdad - in fact, all of the early Vegas aesthetic is Baghdad, which is also the irony. It's 'Aladdin,' the sands, 'One Thousand and One Nights.'