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.

The body says what words cannot.

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

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

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.

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

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. 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.

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

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.

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.

I believe that we learn by practice... it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which come shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit.

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