Quote collection
126 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. One becomes in some area an athlete of God."
"In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength."
"I believe that we learn by practice... it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which come shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit."
"I get up, I fall down, all the while I am dancing."
"Nothing is more revealing than movement."
"Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men."
"We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance."
"America does not concern itself now with Impressionism. We own no involved philosophy. The psyche of the land is to be found in its movement. It is to be felt as a dramatic force of energy and vitality. We move; we do not stand still. We have not yet arrived at the stock-taking stage."
"Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing."
"The past is not dead; it is not even past. People live on inner time; the moment in which a decisive thought or feeling takes place can be at any time. Timeless feelings are common to all of us."
"I am absorbed in the magic of movement and light. Movement never lies. It is the magic of what I call the outer space of the imagination."
"It's not my job to look beautiful. It's my job to look interesting."
"When you start with an idea, or something hits you, then you have to follow that through to the end, and it's the following through to the end that makes the pattern. That, for me, is choreography."
"The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist. It is a miracle. And the dance is a celebration of that miracle."
"To me, a building - if it's beautiful - is the love of one man, he's made it out of his love for space, materials, things like that."
"At the time I started in ballet they were dancing 'The Spirit of Champagne' on pointe, in Paris. I thought, 'I don't want to dance the spirit of champagne, I want to drink it!"
"You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels - a leaf feels, a storm feels - what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it's a cultivated speech."
"No animal ever has an ugly body until it is domesticated. It is the same with the human body."
"It's what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance."
"The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body."