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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

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Well
Chances
Work
Fail
Failure
Failing
Chance
Interesting
Less
Stagnate
Wells
Erosion

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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Doing is better than not doing, and if you do something badly you'll learn to do it better.
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Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. If you're generous to someone, if you do something to help him out, you are in effect making him lucky. This is important. It's like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune.
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The first steps of a creative act are like groping in the dark: random and chaotic, feverish and fearful, a lot of busy-ness with no apparent or definable end in sight.
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Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.
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Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.
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I feel I can handle the architecture of dance as well as anybody.
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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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If you're speaking of love, you really must include the element of uncertainty - and perhaps it's best approached as the art of constant maintenance.
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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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It's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer.
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By making the start of the sequence automatic, they replace doubt and fear with comfort and routine.
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The content and thematic materials of dance is, of itself, like boxing. You play tennis and baseball. But boxing is not a sport you play: you stand up and do it.
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You're only kidding yourself if you put creativity before craft.
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Modern dancers should be doing things no one else is doing, and it should come from the gut.
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Dance has never been a particularly easy life, and everybody knows that.
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In the future, I will make certain that I commit to projects so there's enough breathing space for me to have an emotional life.
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I've always had to keep the walls in place, and the only way to do that is to keep yourself constantly occupied... From the time I was 8 years old, until I went to college, I worked... There was no social life.
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In creative endeavors luck is a skill.
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The great ones never take fundamentals for granted.
Twyla Tharp
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Limits are a secret blessing, and bounty can be a curse.
Twyla Tharp