Famous Quotes & Sayings

Martha Graham

I am certain that movement never lies. There is only one law of posture I have been able to discover - the perpendicular line connecting heaven and earth.

Martha Graham

Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths.

Martha Graham

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open...

Martha Graham

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.

Martha Graham

Stand up! Keep your backs straight! Remember that this is where the wings grow.

Martha Graham

The body says what words cannot.

Martha Graham

No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.

Martha Graham

A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish. After all, I choreographed for myself. I never choreographed what I could not do. I changed steps in Medea and other ballets to accommodate the change. But I knew. And it haunted me. I only wanted to dance.

Martha Graham

I believe that 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. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

Martha Graham

Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.

Martha Graham

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

Martha Graham

Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.

Michel De Certeau

When he grew old, Aristotle, who is not generally considered a tightrope dancer, liked to lose himself in the most labyrinthine and subtle of discourses […]. ‘The more solitary and isolated I become, the more I come to like stories,’ he said.

Mark Twain

I had longed to be a butterfly, and I was one at last. I attended private parties in sumptuous evening dress, simpered and aired my graces like a born beau, and polkaed and schoisched with a step peculiar to myself - and the kangaroo.

Mads Mikkelsen

I became a dancer late and an actor late.

George C. Marshall

It seems to be hard wired into our pleasure centres to move to music.

Havelock Ellis

The aesthetic pleasure of dance is a secondary reflection of the primary, vital joy of courtship.

Fran Lebowitz

Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step - it is an old business procedure.

George Washington

Alas! Our dancing days are no more. We wish, however, all those who have a relish for so agreeable and innocent an amusement all the pleasure the season will afford them.

George Michael

My American gay audience have continued to dance and sing to the music I make in a way that straight Americans haven't. I am grateful to them for that.

Friedrich Nietzsche

I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Without music, life would be a mistake... I would only believe in a God who knew how to dance.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Every day I count wasted in which there has been no dancing.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Real dancers are the ones who can hear the music in their soul.

John Milton

Come and trip it as ye go On the light fantastic toe.

Ninette de Valois

All Ballets' fundamental steps are derived from the folk dances of Western Europe.

Ninette de Valois

Diaghilev was the first to notice good character dancers and that sort of thing.

Ninette de Valois

You can't dance until you've learnt steps, the things your feet can do.

Ninette de Valois

We are developing the other parts, and we can't give quite all our attention to the upper part, but soon the lower parts will be developed, and the upper part and the lower part will become partners, that will be wonderful.

Ninette de Valois

Nothing is done easily, first have the thing, then the thing has a success, then all sorts of difficulties arise through the success.

Ninette de Valois

First of all, the most important, that is to learn everything good that has survived from other times, and carefully to watch the bad - and throw it out.

Ninette de Valois

You never advance without losing something en passant... you lose it because you're paying so much attention to the new thing.

Theophilus London

Billie Jean was a negative dance song, and that was one of the best dance songs ever.