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Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Creative
Craft
Two
Crafts
Without
Lifts
Life
Skill
World
Skills
Floundering
Essence
Combining
Leave
Eager
Passion
Lift

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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I'm often asked, 'Where do you get your ideas?' ...It's like asking, 'Where do you find air to breathe?' Ideas are all around you.
Twyla Tharp
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I always find that the best collaborations are when you work with people that know what they're doing, and you leave them alone to do it.
Twyla Tharp
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Don’t sign on for more problems than you must. Resist the temptation to involve yourself in other people’s zones of expertise and responsibility. Monitor troublesome situations if you need to, but don’t insert yourself unless you’re running out of time and a solution is nowhere in sight. In short, stifle your inner control freak.
Twyla Tharp
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I have always felt one of the things dance should do - its business being so clearly physical - is challenge the culture's gender stereotypes.
Twyla Tharp
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There really is nothing I ever had access to that I didn't appreciate.
Twyla Tharp
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Traveling the paths of greatness, even in someone else's footprints, is a vital means to acquiring skill.
Twyla Tharp
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Our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable.
Twyla Tharp
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Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box
Twyla Tharp
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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.
Twyla Tharp
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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.
Twyla Tharp
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I think that anyone who's pushed to do the very best that they can is privileged. It's a luxury.
Twyla Tharp
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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.
Twyla Tharp
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I'm not one who divides music, dance or art into various categories. Either something works, or it doesn't.
Twyla Tharp
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A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet, that the two disciplines were totally separate, and if you did one, you couldn’t do the other. I’m beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things.
Twyla Tharp
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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.
Twyla Tharp
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I'm a known reader. That's what I do with my time.
Twyla Tharp
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There's this expression called postmodernism, which is kind of silly, and destroys a perfectly good word called modern, which now no longer means anything.
Twyla Tharp
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Whether it's a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory, the routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.
Twyla Tharp
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You only need one good reason to commit to an idea, not four hundred. But if you have four hundred reasons to say yes and one reason to say no, the answer is probably no.
Twyla Tharp
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I had received my first establishment grants in response to applications filed the year before. To the pages of baffling forms I had simply attached a handwritten note saying, 'I make dances, not applications. Send the money. Love, Twyla.
Twyla Tharp