There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.

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

I have not wanted to intimidate audiences. I have not wanted my dancing to be an elitist form. That doesn't mean I haven't wanted it to be excellent.

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

Our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable.

No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.

If you only do what you know and do it very, very well, chances are that you won't fail. You'll just stagnate, and your work will get less and less interesting, and that's failure by erosion

You don't get into the mood to create – it's discipline.

Life is about moving, it’s about change. And when things stop doing that they’re dead.

More often than not I've found, a rut is a consequence of sticking to tried and tested methods that don't take into account how you or the world has changed.

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.

If rhetoric study was the military, grammar teachers would be the drill sergeants.

We're all going to change. Otherwise, it's boring.

I believe in fate and what's meant to be mine will be mine, and if it's not in my lap, then it's not mine.

I don't accept the argument of people like David Horowitz that the government should impose some sort of predetermined political balance on academic research.

Without love, the world itself would not survive.

Texture is most evident where dark meets light on the turning edge and at the outer edge. Experience has taught us to assume that the areas in between have similar features.

At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. Breathe into me. Close the language-door and open the love-window. The moon won't use the door, only the window.

If you haven't cried, your eyes can't be beautiful.

People who are kind of at the cutting edge of life and survival, and being near the nitty-gritty, like my films, and I like that.