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I've always thought my creative life began the moment my mother called me Twyla.

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Mother
Moments
Thought
Always
Began
Life
Creativity
Called
Creative
Moment

More quotes by 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 never studied with Balanchine, but his work was very important to me.
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Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.
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In terms of individuals who actually inspired me, very few of the academic people that I had access to had that power over me. Maybe it's simply because I wasn't that committed to geometry.
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You don't get into the mood to create – it's discipline.
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A young person has to start making decisions for themselves at a much earlier age than an overbearing parent allows one.
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You can keep on chewing gum for ten hours, but after about a minute and a half you've got all the good out of it.
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That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.
Twyla Tharp
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A dancer's life is all about repetition.
Twyla Tharp
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The way I enjoyed spending time most was dancing. That's from the time I was a very small child, When I was 4 or 5 years old, I remember already having a regime. It was the way I always identified myself.
Twyla Tharp
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Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box
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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 was privileged to be able to study a year with Martha Graham, the last year she was teaching.
Twyla Tharp
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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
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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
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I've survived inattention. I hope to God I survive attention.
Twyla Tharp
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I've always found it necessity to strip away everything but the most fundamental ways to work - the rest is style.
Twyla Tharp
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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.
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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Without the little ideas, there are no big ideas.
Twyla Tharp