THINGS JIM SAID

• When I hear the art of puppetry discussed, I often feel frustrated in that it's one of those pure things that somehow becomes much less interesting when it is overdiscussed or analyzed.
  • Jim Henson, p. 32

• One of the nice things about puppets is that it's your own hand in there. You can make it do anything you want it to.
• Jim Henson, p. 51
• There must be a lot of shy actor in puppeteering. His work is the puppeteer's statement. It's his outlet. If I had to face the audience myself, as Jim Henson, I'm sure I'd be just a bit shy. But when it's your puppets that face the audience, it's different. That I can do very easily.

• People shouldn't come expecting to see the Muppets because they are not here. This is something else.

• With puppets, I don't think you should try to duplicate what humans do. It can cause problems.

• Puppetry's a lot harder than people realize, and it's particularly difficult doing a movie. You have this scene with all these puppets, and when something goes wrong, you've got to set the whole thing up to do it again. With people, you ask an actor to walk across the room a second or third time, and he does it. That's it.
• Puppets have the same sort of graceful aging that cartoon characters have.