Martha Graham Quotations

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

Misery is a communicable disease.

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

First we have to believe, and then we believe.

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

I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer's body, we as audience must see ourselves, not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of the miracle that is a human being.

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

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body.

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

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.

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

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

I am unbelievably relieved. He is one of the best kids in the world.

Who has not found the Heaven below / Will fail of it above ... His eagerness, his voracity, a blood memory, in the sense that he can extract more from his life than what he has really lived. He must have a will to explore unknown feelings and dare to feel them. This may seem terrifying, but it has to be done because there is no other option.

Dance is the hidden language of the soul.

the instrument by which the dance expresses itself is also the instrument by which life is lived: the human body.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The body says what words cannot.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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.

Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery

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.

Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.

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.

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

Censorship is the height of vanity.

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.

At the time I started in ballet they were dancing 'The Spirit of Champagne' on pointe, in Paris. I thought, 'I don't want to dance the spirit of champagne, I want to drink it!

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

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

The center of the stage is where I am.

Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

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

Dancers are the messengers of the gods.

In 1980, a well-meaning fundraiser came to see me and said, "Miss Graham, the most powerful thing you have going for you to raise money is your respectability." I wanted to spit. Respectable! Show me any artist who wants to be respectable.

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

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

The unique must be fulfilled.

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.

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

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

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

You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being.

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.

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

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

We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance.

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.

I love words very much. I've always loved to talk, and I've always love words — the words that rest in your mouth, what words mean and how you taste them and so on. And for me the spoken word can be used almost as a gesture.

America does not concern itself now with Impressionism. We own no involved philosophy. The psyche of the land is to be found in its movement. It is to be felt as a dramatic force of energy and vitality. We move; we do not stand still. We have not yet arrived at the stock-taking stage.

Nothing is more revealing than movement.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

The only sin is mediocrity.

It takes ten years, usually, to make a dancer. It takes ten years of handling the instrument, handling the material with which you are dealing, for you to know it completely.

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

There is only one you in all time.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

I'm asked so often whether I believe in life after death. I do believe in the sanctity of life, the continuity of life and of energy. I know the anonymity of death has no appeal for me. It is the now that I must face and want to face.

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

Dance is the landscape of man's soul.

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

Repetition not for monotony but the ecstasy it induces.

All things I do are in every woman. Every woman is Medea. Every woman is Jocasta. There comes a time when a woman is a mother to her husband. Clytemnestra is every woman when she kills.

The body is a sacred garment.

...Although, as the Latin verb to educate, educate, indicates, it is not a question of putting something in but drawing it out, if it is there to begin with...I want all of my students and all of my dancers to be aware of the poignancy of life at that moment. I would like to feel that I had, in some way, given them the gift of themselves.

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

Dancers have more bones than most people and on the days when you work hard you are sure that you have somehow accumulated more bones than you started with.

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. The instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived ... the human body.