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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.
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
Nation
Folk
Nations
Politicians
Attention
Folks
Understand
Politician
Song
Dance
Look
Songs
Looks
Pay
Listen
Dances
More quotes by Agnes de Mille
I want one word on my tombstone - dancer.
Agnes de Mille
We can't stand silence, because silence induces thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
Agnes de Mille
The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.
Agnes de Mille
Then I did the simplest thing in the world. I leaned down... and kissed him. And the world cracked open.
Agnes de Mille
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
I studied the way I danced- to the point of dropping.
Agnes de Mille
Who am I?, the artist asks. And he devotes his whole life to finding out.
Agnes de Mille
Friends die one by one, but so, thank God, do enemies.
Agnes de Mille
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
The practice mirror is to be used for the correction of faults, not for a love affair, and the figure you watch should not become your dearest friend.
Agnes de Mille
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.
Agnes de Mille
Dance in the body you have.
Agnes de Mille
Dancing is such a despised and dishonored trade that if you tell a doctor or a laywer you do choreography he'll look at you as if you were a hummingbird. Dancers don't get invited to visit people. It is assumed a boy dancer will run off with the spoons and a girl with the head of the house.
Agnes de Mille
Many other women have kicked higher, balanced longer, or turned faster. These are poor substitutes for passion.
Agnes de Mille
My heroines are part of me and my heroes are part of what I'd like to know.
Agnes de Mille
The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.
Agnes de Mille
There is something fearfully strengthening about cutting free even if the ties bandage the heart itself.
Agnes de Mille
Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.
Agnes de Mille
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
A good education is usually harmful to a dancer. A good calf is better than a good head.
Agnes de Mille
