Quote

Without the little ideas, there are no big ideas.

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
Without
Bigs
Littles
Ideas
Little

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

Image
I also had a will that let me eliminate everything that stood in the way of my becoming the best dancer I could be. By a gradual process... (I) had invested every bit of my dreams, my hopes, my energies in defining myself as a dancer.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I think of music as fuel, its spectrum of energy governed by tempi, volume, and heart.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I think that anyone who's pushed to do the very best that they can is privileged. It's a luxury.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.
Twyla Tharp
Image
There are as many forms of memory as there are ways of perceiving, and every one of them is worth mining for inspiration.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box
Twyla Tharp
Image
The great ones never take fundamentals for granted.
Twyla Tharp
Image
With each piece I've completed I have worked to make it intact, and each of them has been an equal high. It's like children. A mother refuses to pick out one as a favorite, and I can't do any better with the dances.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.
Twyla Tharp
Image
You don't have a really good idea until you combine two little ideas.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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
Image
That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.
Twyla Tharp
Image
The more you know, the better you can imagine.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Playwrights have texts, composers have scores, painters and sculptors have the residue of those activities, and dance is traditionally an ephemeral, effervescent, here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of thing.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission, and that's what I set out to do.
Twyla Tharp
Image
When I'm in the studio, when I'm warm, when I'm what people call improvising, I feel a very special connection. I feel the most right. I don't want to become too mystic about this, but things feel as though they're in the best order at that particular moment.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I was valedictorian. Did I enjoy going to school? I hated it. It wasn't a choice on my part, it was expected.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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
Image
My greatest fear in working is always the end. Lately I have taken to tricking myself into finishing by leaving a hole in the middle somewhere, then stitching the two pieces together - the Union Pacific approach.
Twyla Tharp