black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.

Martha Graham

A dancer must listen to his body and pay homage to it. Behind the movement lies this terrible, driving passion, this necessity. I won’t settle for anything less.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Listening Movement Myself Necessary Pay Terrible
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
Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully and with inevitability.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Beautiful Challenge Communication Dance Greatness Inevitable
Misery is a communicable disease.
MARTHA GRAHAM

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

Aware Light Myself Sun
I want to make people feel intensely alive. I’d rather have them against me than indifferent.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Alive Feeling Intense Myself People
Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Greatness Inspirational Passion Technique
We are all of us, unique – each a unique pattern of creativity and if we do not fulfill it, it is lost for all time.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Creativity Lost Pattern Time Unique
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
Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Desire Invitation Perfection Practice
The center of the stage is where I am.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Artist Attention Myself Place Stage
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
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
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Call Imagination Magic Movement Myself Space
Nothing is more revealing than movement.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Exposure Movement Reveal
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
The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Life One Liner Respect Tree
Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Lying Movement Reading Soul State
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Essence Expression Feeling Hope Human Myself Soul Wonderful
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
The unique must be fulfilled.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Fulfillment One Liner Unique
My dancing is not an attempt to interpret life in the literary sense. It is an affirmation of life through movement.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Life Literature Movement
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Cultivate Feeling Right Storm Technique Yourself
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
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

Business Compare Determination Direction Expression Value Yourself
Some of you are doomed to be artists.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Artist Deep One Liner
Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Dedication Holy Inspirational One Liner Passion Place Stand

It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Martha Graham Quotes