Martha Graham Quotes

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.

The body says what words cannot.

I believe that 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. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. 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.

Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.

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.

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.

Dance is the hidden langauge of the soul, of the 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.

Misery is a communicable disease.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.

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.

All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.

What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.

Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully and with inevitability.

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.

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

You see, when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.

No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.

People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life.

A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish. After all, I choreographed for myself. I never choreographed what I could not do. I changed steps in Medea and other ballets to accommodate the change. But I knew. And it haunted me. I only wanted to dance.

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.

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.

Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place.

I believe that dance was the first art. A philosopher has said that dance and architecture were the first arts. I believe that dance was first because it's gesture, it's communication. That doesn't mean it's telling a story, but it means it's communicating a feeling, a sensation to people.

Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.

Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths.

Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.

Looking at the past is like lolling in a rocking chair. It is so relaxing and you can rock back and forth on the porch, and never go forward.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.

The reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living.

The secret to dancing is that it is about everything except dancing.

I am certain that movement never lies. There is only one law of posture I have been able to discover - the perpendicular line connecting heaven and earth.

Modern dance isn't anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America.

Dancers are the messengers of the gods.

Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.

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.

Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for -- liberation.

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

My dancing is not an attempt to interpret life in the literary sense. It is an affirmation of life through movement.

You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.

The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.

It takes about ten years to make a mature dancer. The training is twofold. There is the study and practice of the craft in order to strengthen the muscular structure of the body. The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted. The movement become clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life, the law which governs its outer aspects

'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.

Censorship is the height of vanity.

I did not choose to be a dancer. I was chosen.

Dancing is a very living art. It is essentially of the moment, although a very old art. A dancer's art is lived while he is dancing. Nothing is left of his art except the pictures and the memories--when his dancing days are over.

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 of time, this expression is unique.

Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery - what it all means, the way the little bone near the ankle relates itself to the floor for a perfect stance, a perfect plie.