If you want to understand a nation, look at its dances and listen to its folk songs – don’t pay any attention to its politicians.
AGNES DE MILLEThe creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.
More Agnes de Mille Quotes
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Modern dancers give a sinister portent about our times. The dancers don’t even look at one another.
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No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made.
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I am completely absorbed by the music and the steps I choose to respond to the music.
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I had had to learn the difference between the bearable fatigue and the unbearable, the fatigue of fear. The first can be cured by a night’s sleep; the second kills.
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We can’t stand silence, because silence includes thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
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To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.
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Many other women have kicked higher, balanced longer, or turned faster. These are poor substitutes for passion.
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Emily Dickinson provided four or more alternates for every word; Beethoven wrestled with endings to the point of exhaustion; in our day Jerome Robbins and his lack of decision are a byword in the dance profession.
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Dance in the body you have.
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What have we got here in America that we believe we cannot live without?
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When I dance I am really meditating rather then performing for an audience.
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The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.
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Who am I?, the artist asks. And he devotes his whole life to finding out.
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I want one word on my tombstone – dancer.
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So that we will miss nothing. Partly it’s greed, but mainly its curiosity. We just want to experience it. And we do.
AGNES DE MILLE