Nothing is more revealing than movement. The body says what words cannot.

Misery is a communicable disease.

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.

It takes at least five years of rigorous training to be spontaneous.

The body says what words cannot.

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

First we have to believe, and then we believe.

One can always lament, you know -- but to laugh in the face of life, that's very hard. And for me the great tragedian should also be a great comedian.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels -- a leaf feels, a storm feels -- what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it's a cultivated speech.

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.