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Theater people are always pining and agonizing because they're afraid that they'll be forgotten. And in America they're quite right. They will be.

Agnes de Mille

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Agnes de Mille
Age: 88 †
Born: 1905
Born: September 18
Died: 1993
Died: October 6
Ballet Dancer
Ballet Master
Choreographer
Dancer
Theatrical Director
Harlem
New York
Always
Pining
People
Agonizing
Forgotten
Theater
Afraid
Quite
America
Right

More quotes by Agnes de Mille

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Ours is an upbeat, a hurried, hasty beat. It keeps pressing us to go farther, to include everything so that we can savor everything, so that we can know everything, so that we will miss nothing. Partly it's greed, but mainly its curiosity. We just want to experience it. And we do.
Agnes de Mille
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The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.
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Who am I?, the artist asks. And he devotes his whole life to finding out.
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I want one word on my tombstone - dancer.
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The choreographic process is exhausting. It happens on one's feet after hours of work, and the energy required is roughly the equivalent of writing a novel and winning a tennis match simultaneously.
Agnes de Mille
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There is something fearfully strengthening about cutting free even if the ties bandage the heart itself.
Agnes de Mille
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I learned three important things in college-to use a library, to memorize quickly and visually, to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes. What I could not learn was to think creatively on schedule.
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My heroines are part of me and my heroes are part of what I'd like to know.
Agnes de Mille
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Many other women have kicked higher, balanced longer, or turned faster. These are poor substitutes for passion.
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If you want to understand a nation, look at its dances and listen to its folk songs - don't pay any attention to its politicians.
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Dancers aren't made of their technique, but their passion.
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The universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind. From this voyage no one returns poor or weary.
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To make up a dance, I still need, as I needed then, a pot of tea, walking space, privacy and an idea.
Agnes de Mille
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Modern dancers give a sinister portent about our times. The dancers don't even look at one another. They are just a lot of isolated individuals jiggling in a kind of self-hypnosis and dancing with others only to remind themselves that we are not completely alone in this world.
Agnes de Mille
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Toe dancing is a dandy attention getter, second only to screaming.
Agnes de Mille
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No white man uses his feet the way an Indian does. He talks to the earth.
Agnes de Mille
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I studied the way I danced- to the point of dropping.
Agnes de Mille
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Modern dancers give a sinister portent about our times.
Agnes de Mille
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When I dance I am really meditating rather then performing for an audience. I am completely absorbed by the music and the steps I choose to respond to the music.
Agnes de Mille
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A good education is usually harmful to a dancer. A good calf is better than a good head.
Agnes de Mille