Quotes from James Lapine

I'm a hippie child of the '60s. What drives me crazy about mass media entertainment is that it's so often devoid of any ideas.

There are certain images that always haunt me.

I designed a theater magazine that was full of plays and essays about the theater, and then I worked at a theater school. By osmosis or something, I was learning from reading plays and not being analytical about them, but when I would read them, the joy in me was mostly from imagining them in my head and visualizing them.

That's the thing about dreams - they're ineffable. If you can get to the bottom of it, it's not a dream.

I was a youngish man entering fatherhood when we wrote 'Woods,' a patchwork of classic fairy tales with an original tale sewn in. I had dedicated my libretto to my baby daughter.

As you get older, you realize happiness involves a lot of problems.

Some of the things I've done in my life, I've done to make money because I had to make money... and some things I did just because they were on my mind and they were of interest to me... some of the little plays I wrote.

Meryl Streep's really smart, and she's a film animal, and she knows that.

I am thrilled to receive the Sondheim Award from the wonderful Signature Theatre. I have already received the invaluable gift of over twenty-five years of collaboration and friendship with Steve. Now I get to have his award, too!

I've grown more and more appreciative of good writing, and I now really hope I can become a better and better writer.

Most musicals are real crowd pleasers.

I am an off-Broadway, nonprofit kind of guy.

The nice thing about the theatre is you can always change it. With a movie, once it's there, you're stuck with it.

The music is the emotional substance of the show; the book just sets it up. Nobody goes to a musical to hear the book. That's the way it works.

I'm drawn to dreams.

I just don't really think of career. I've never been driven by career.

When you're young, you envision happiness in such an idealized way.