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I think people want very much to simplify their lives enough so that they can control the things that make it possible to sleep at night.

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Make
Simplify
Things
Control
Think
Sleep
Thinking
Possible
People
Lives
Night
Enough
Much

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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Whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and preparation, you won't know how to harness the power of that kiss.
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I learned very early that an audience would relax and look at things differently if they felt they could laugh with you from time to time. There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.
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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.
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I walk into a large white room. It's a dance studio in midtown Manhattan. The room is clean, virtually spotless if you don’t count the thousands of skid marks and footprints left there by dancers rehearsing. Other than the mirrors, the boom box, the skid marks, and me, the room is empty.
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Just when you arrive at the apex of your skills, it's time to retire. But as it turned out, I decided that since it was the thing that I felt I did best, I owed it to all that be to pursue it.
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To embrace luck, you have to enhance your tolerance for ambiguity.
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It's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer.
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Perfect practice makes perfect.
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I'm not one who divides music, dance or art into various categories. Either something works, or it doesn't.
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There are as many forms of memory as there are ways of perceiving, and every one of them is worth mining for inspiration.
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Whenever I feel I'm working in a groove it's invariably because I feel I am being the benefactor in the situation rather than the beneficiary. I am sharing my art with others, lending my craft to theirs, interest-free with no IOU.
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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
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I was fortunate to love men, so I could put them on stage and make roles for them, and move through their bodies in a way that they enjoy doing...
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The disasteris not the money, although the money will be missed. The disaster is the disrespect--this belief that the arts are dispensable, that they're not critical to a culture's existence.
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It's vital to establish some rituals-automatic but decisive patterns of behavior-at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.
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You don't get into the mood to create – it's discipline.
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Dancing is like bank robbery, it takes split-second timing.
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Everyone has a talent. It's simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck.
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I’m much stronger than most women. Consequently, when I work with men, or when I’m partnered by men... We can actually go into kinds of movement that haven’t been available before, simply because I’ve strengthened myself as a woman, not because I’ve weakened him.
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Doing is better than not doing, and if you do something badly you'll learn to do it better.
Twyla Tharp