Martha Graham quotes - page 2

No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissastifaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others. (Martha Graham)
Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. View quote
Martha Graham
The erotic element is life, but doesn't have to absorb you, it doesn't have to be a naughty word. It's the love of life in many ways. View quote
Martha Graham
Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion. View quote
Martha Graham
I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it. View quote
Martha Graham
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. View quote
Martha Graham
The body is a sacred garment. View quote
Martha Graham
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. View quote
Martha Graham
Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain. View quote
Martha Graham
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. View quote
Martha Graham
The most brilliant scientific discoveries will in time change and perhaps grow obsolete as new scientific manifestations emerge. But art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man. (Martha Graham)
Many times I hear the phrase "the dance of life". It is an expression that touches me deeply, for the instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived - the human body. View quote
Martha Graham
Some of you are doomed to be artists. View quote
Martha Graham
Dancers are the messengers of the gods. View quote
Martha Graham
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. View quote
Martha Graham
What people in the world think of you is really none of your business. View quote
Martha Graham
The unique must be fulfilled. View quote
Martha Graham
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men. View quote
Martha Graham
Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place. View quote
Martha Graham
Censorship is the height of vanity. View quote
Martha Graham
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. (Martha Graham)
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. View quote
Martha Graham
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. View quote
Martha Graham
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! View quote
Martha Graham
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. 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. View quote
Martha Graham