Martha Graham Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.

Dancers are the messengers of the gods.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Censorship is the height of vanity.

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.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well.

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.

The body is a sacred garment.

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

Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

If you feel depressed you shouldn't go out on the street because it will show on your face and you'll give it to others. Misery is a communicable disease.

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

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.