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It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

Martha Graham

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

Desire Face Faith Invitation Obstacle Perfection Performance Practice Vision
It’s what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Fun Joy Laughter Myself
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Evitable Fear Happiness Intense Life
Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Inspirational Ourselves Perspective Start Wings
Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Meaning Movement Passion Technique
I’d rather an audience like me than dislike me, but I’d rather they disliked me than be apathetic, because that is the kiss of death.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Audience Death Kiss Myself
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Believe Dedication Intellectual Learning Oneself Performance Practice Satisfaction Spirit
Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Care Dance Greatness Inspirational Passion
No animal ever has an ugly body until it is domesticated. It is the same with the human body.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Animal Body Human See Ugly
Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Joy Pain Song
No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Alive Artist Divine Satisfaction Strange Time
Stand up! Keep your backs straight! Remember that this is where the wings grow.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Growth Inspirational Remember Stand Wings
I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can’t stop.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Believe Day Future Myself Past Time
Dance is the landscape of man’s soul.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Man Soul
Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Eternity Forever Man Soul
Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Excuse Man Oneself Reason Willing
If you feel depressed you shouldn’t go out on the street because it will show on your face and you’ll give it to others. Misery is a communicable disease.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Communication Depression Face Feeling Misery Sick
What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Aware Light Myself Sun
The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Body Creature Dance Instrument Yourself
Repetition not for monotony but the ecstasy it induces.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Boredom Happiness Repeat
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Adversity Fire Gold Man Test
It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Beautiful Interest Job Myself
No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Artist Himself Time
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Action Energy Expression Force Life Quick Translation Unique
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Death Live Ourselves Past People Time
My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Children Darkness Time
In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Beautiful Dance Delicate Forget Miracle Strength

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

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It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Martha Graham Quotes