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You don’t pick dance. Dance picks you.

Martha Graham

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 use the words gods and goddesses principally, I think, to mean beautiful bodies – bodies that are absolute instruments. And I believe in discipline, I believe in a very definite technique.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Believe Discipline God Principle Technique Thinking Word
You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Class Dance Learning Practice Yourself
It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Beautiful Interest Job Myself
Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Celebration Dance Magic Miracle Small Yourself
You don’t pick dance. Dance picks you.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Inspirational Style Yourself
Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for — liberation.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Discipline Freedom Liberty Technique
Misery is a communicable disease.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Communication Misery Sick
Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Inspirational Ourselves Perspective Start Wings
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
The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist. It is a miracle. And the dance is a celebration of that miracle.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Celebration Dance Growth Hands Mirror Thinking Time Way Yourself
Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Dedication Holy Inspirational One Liner Passion Place Stand
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 spine is the tree of life. Respect it.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Life One Liner Respect Tree
The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Act Expression Thinking True
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Area Athlete Dance God Learning Live Oneself Practice
Modern dance isn’t anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Country Dance Exception Freedom Mindset Modern Woman
I get up, I fall down, all the while I am dancing.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Fall Inspirational Myself
I don’t think in art there is ever a precedent; each moment is a new one and terrifying and threatening and bursting with hope.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Hope Myself Thinking Threat
My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Children Darkness Time
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
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
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
In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Breathe End One Liner
Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Hide Language
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
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

You don’t pick dance. Dance picks you.

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You don’t pick dance. Dance picks you.

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