Quote

This is not a pleasant route for many young people to consider. You have to be either hopelessly passionate, or very stupid.

Twyla Tharp

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Young
Routes
Many
Ballet
People
Pleasant
Passionate
Consider
Dance
Stupid
Hopelessly
Either
Route

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

Image
Dance is the stepchild of the arts.
Twyla Tharp
Image
My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born, in Jay County, to have a college degree. She was educated as a pianist and she wanted to concertize, but when the war came she was married, had a family, so she started teaching.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Concentrate: you can't have it all.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Art is running away without ever leaving home.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I work because I have issues and questions and feelings and thoughts that I want to have a look at. I'm not in need of, or wanting, particularly, to know what other folk are up to.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I think that probably the moments of discovery do come from a place that is not totally organized. Order is something that we already know about. Discoveries are in a place we don't already know about.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Any comic is a tragic soul. Comedy is one of the things that allows one to survive. Particularly if one has been in the process of separating off the emotions, it's one place you can process them.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I am fairly concise when I work and I work quickly because I think work is done better in a high gear than done our in a gear when everyone's exhausted. Get focused, do it!
Twyla Tharp
Image
Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Without the little ideas, there are no big ideas.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Perfect practice makes perfect.
Twyla Tharp
Image
The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Later in life, one of the compensations is gliding effortlessly into focus in a thing. Since it is who we are, anything that is not the focus or supportive thereof is just not us. Even outside issues, when they arise, are interesting in that they only help define the focus more clearly.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I'm willing to be regarded as a tyrant to keep my vision intact.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Obligation is a flimsy base for creativity, way down the list behind passion, courage, instinct, and the desire to do something great.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it.
Twyla Tharp
Image
A commission is an invitation to fall in love.
Twyla Tharp