“The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.”

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.

In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.

There is a force, a quickness that is translated through you into action. If you block it, the world will not have it.

Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.

The center of the stage is where I am.

Nothing is more revealing than movement.

Dancers have more bones than most people and on the days when you work hard you are sure that you have somehow accumulated more bones than you started with.

No animal ever has an ugly body until it is domesticated. It is the same with the human body.

The main thing, of course, always, is the fact that there is only one of you in the world, just one, and if that is not fulfilled then something has been lost. Ambition is not enough; necessity is everything.

I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It’s permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable.

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.

Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

The body is a sacred garment. It’s your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor.

I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man–the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be.

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.

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

If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, ‘a lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on’.

Words have no language which can utter the secrets of love; and beyond the limits of expression is the expounding of desire.

The best moments can’t be preconceived. I’ve spent a lot of time in editing rooms, and a scene can be technically perfect, with perfect delivery and facial expression and timing, and you remember all your lines, and it is dead.

I was an art history major, but never specifically contemporary. I would say where I really stopped were the abstract expressionists in the New York school.

What is the root of all these words? One thing: Love. But a love so deep and sweet it needed to express itself with scents, sounds, colors that never before existed.

Love is simply a bundle of feelings that we express, whether to attract, arouse or communicate our thoughts to someone else.

The floor exercise is a way to express your personality.

A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels…