Twyla Tharp Quotes

This is the strange thing: Dancers don't age.

In dreams, anything can be anything, and everybody can do. We can fly, we can turn upside down, we can transform into anything.

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.

I feel I can handle the architecture of dance as well as anybody.

Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.

If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.

Everyone has a talent. It's simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck.

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.

People often say to me, 'I don't know anything about dance.' I say, 'Stop. You got up this morning, and you're walking. You are an expert.'

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.

I think a sense of humor will help get a girl out of a dark place.

'The Creative Habit' is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. 'The Collaborative Habit' is obviously about surviving with other people.

Schubert had arguably the same melodic gift as Mozart, but even less support. He didn't have the early exposure, never got to travel anywhere, and yet generated and amassed a body of work that grew an...

What we want from modern dance is courage and audacity.

Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them. What we're talking about here is metaphor. Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, i...

Creativity is an act of defiance.

To survive, you've got to keep wheedling your way. You can't just sit there and fight against odds when it's not going to work. You have to turn a corner, dig a hole, go through a tunnel - and find a...

I always tell students that you've got to be practical. You do not need a dream. You need a purpose, something you can wake up to in the morning when the dream is dissipated.

Judgment is not my business. Existing is my business.

In terms of individuals who actually inspired me, very few of the academic people that I had access to had that power over me. Maybe it's simply because I wasn't that committed to geometry.