Martha Graham quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Martha Graham

Martha Graham Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Martha Graham on Wise Famous Quotes.

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

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

I don't think in Art there is ever a precedent; each moment is a new one & terrifying & threatening & bursting with hope.

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

Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing.

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

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

There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep.

I think comedy is the most difficult thing in the world, I really do.

Learn by practice.

A dancer isn't great because of their technique ... they're great because of their passion.

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

Nothing is more revealing than movement.

Sometimes it's blood memory ... not the blood your mother and father gave you ... but that which stretches back two or three thousand years.

You don't pick dance. Dance picks you.

To me, the body says what words cannot. I believe that dance was the first art.

Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.

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

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

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.

I believe that we learn by practice.

The body says what words cannot.

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

Misery is a communicable disease.

Dancing is very like poetry.

It's what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance.

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.

Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.

No animal ever has an ugly body until it is domesticated. It is the same with the human body.

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

Censorship is the height of vanity.

There is only one you in all time.

Pity is a corroding thing.

What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.

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

The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted.

To me, a building - if it's beautiful - is the love of one man, he's made it out of his love for space, materials, things like that.

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.

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

Some of you are doomed to be artists.

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

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

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual - as we think so will we act.

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.

Theater used to be a verb; it used to be an act. But nowadays it is just a noun. It is a place.

Dance is the hidden language of the soul

I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can't stop.

I get up, I fall down, all the while I am dancing.

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

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

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

You give all your life to doing this one thing. It sounds grim, it sounds frightening - it isn't - it has a great gaiety at times and a great wonder.

Dance is the landscape of man's soul.

The body never lies.

The body never lies."
Martha Graham

Dancers are the messengers of the gods.

My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.

The world I'm interested in is the one where things are not named.

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

The center of the stage is where I am.

The unique must be fulfilled.

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

The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.

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

Repetition not for monotony but the ecstasy it induces.

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

What makes a great dancer is not technique. What makes a great dancer is passion.

Don't stand when you can sit; don't sit when you can lie down.

In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.

Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery

I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it.

The only sin is mediocrity.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well.

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

I want to make people feel intensely alive. I'd rather have them against me than indifferent.

The body is a sacred garment.

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.

No artist is ahead of his time. He is the time. It is just that others are behind the time.

Discipline is liberation.

You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost.

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

There is a fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration; there are daily small deaths.

If I can't dance, I don't care if my dances are ever done again!