Martha Graham Quotes & Sayings

The secret to dancing is that it is about everything except dancing. — Martha Graham

America does not concern itself now with Impressionism. We own no involved philosophy. The psyche of the land is to be found in its movement. It is to be felt as a dramatic force of energy and vitality. We move; we do not stand still. We have not yet arrived at the stock-taking stage. — Martha Graham

To me, a building - if it's beautiful - is the love of one man, he's made it out of his love for space, materials, things like that. — Martha Graham

I am a dancer. I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living ... In each it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some area an athlete of God. — Martha Graham

Stand up! Keep your backs straight! Remember that this is where the wings grow. — Martha Graham

A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish. After all, I choreographed for myself. I never choreographed what I could not do. I changed steps in Medea and other ballets to accommodate the change. But I knew. And it haunted me. I only wanted to dance. — Martha Graham

You give all your life to doing this one thing. It sounds grim, it sounds frightening - it isn't - it has a great gaiety at times and a great wonder. — Martha Graham

The center of the stage is where I am. — Martha Graham

There is a fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration; there are daily small deaths. — Martha Graham

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open ... — Martha Graham

Dancers are the messengers of the gods. — Martha Graham

In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing. — Martha Graham

I believe that dance was the first art. A philosopher has said that dance and architecture were the first arts. I believe that dance was first because it's gesture, it's communication. That doesn't mean it's telling a story, but it means it's communicating a feeling, a sensation to people. — Martha Graham

'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years. — Martha Graham

What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness. — Martha Graham

I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer's body, we as audience must see ourselves, not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of the miracle that is a human being. — Martha Graham

Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for
liberation. — Martha Graham

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion. — Martha Graham

If I can't dance, I don't care if my dances are ever done again! — Martha Graham

No animal ever has an ugly body until it is domesticated. It is the same with the human body. — Martha Graham

Think of the magic of the foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It's a miracle and the dance is a celebration of that miracle. — Martha Graham

I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable. — Martha Graham

Learn by practice. — Martha Graham

At the time I started in ballet they were dancing 'The Spirit of Champagne' on pointe, in Paris. I thought, 'I don't want to dance the spirit of champagne, I want to drink it! — Martha Graham

The body never lies."
Martha Graham — Martha Graham

In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength. — Martha Graham

When you start with an idea, or something hits you, then you have to follow that through to the end, and it's the following through to the end that makes the pattern. That, for me, is choreography. — Martha Graham

The spine is the tree of life. Respect it. — Martha Graham

The reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living. — Martha Graham

My childhood years were a balance of dark and light. — Martha Graham

Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to,
when all they need is one reason why they can — Martha Graham

You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels - a leaf feels, a storm feels - what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it's a cultivated speech. — Martha Graham

I am certain that movement never lies. There is only one law of posture I have been able to discover - the perpendicular line connecting heaven and earth. — Martha Graham

You don't pick dance. Dance picks you. — Martha Graham

Censorship is the height of vanity. — Martha Graham

There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. — Martha Graham

I never set out to create a technique. I started out on the floor to find myself, to find what the body could do, and what would give me satisfaction - emotionally, dramatically and bodily. But I did not ever dream of establishing a technique. I still can't believe anything like that happened. — Martha Graham

I'm asked so often whether I believe in life after death. I do believe in the sanctity of life, the continuity of life and of energy. I know the anonymity of death has no appeal for me. It is the now that I must face and want to face. — Martha Graham

No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times. — Martha Graham

Sometimes it's blood memory ... not the blood your mother and father gave you ... but that which stretches back two or three thousand years. — Martha Graham

I believe that we learn by practice ... it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which come shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. — Martha Graham

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion. — Martha Graham

No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissastifaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others. — Martha Graham

The body is a sacred garment. It's your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor. — Martha Graham

You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost. — Martha Graham

A dancer isn't great because of their technique ... they're great because of their passion. — Martha Graham

Dancing is a very living art. It is essentially of the moment, although a very old art. A dancer's art is lived while he is dancing. Nothing is left of his art except the pictures and the memories
when his dancing days are over. — Martha Graham

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body. — Martha Graham

All things I do are in every woman. Every woman is Medea. Every woman is Jocasta. There comes a time when a woman is a mother to her husband. Clytemnestra is every woman when she kills. — Martha Graham

In 1980, a well-meaning fundraiser came to see me and said, "Miss Graham, the most powerful thing you have going for you to raise money is your respectability." I wanted to spit. Respectable! Show me any artist who wants to be respectable. — Martha Graham

Our arms start from the back because they were once wings. — Martha Graham

The past is not dead; it is not even past. People live on inner time; the moment in which a decisive thought or feeling takes place can be at any time. Timeless feelings are common to all of us. — Martha Graham

I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man
the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be. — Martha Graham

Discipline is liberation. — Martha Graham

The body is a sacred garment. — Martha Graham

You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being. — Martha Graham

I use the words gods and goddesses principally, I think, to mean beautiful bodies - bodies that are absolute instruments. And I believe in discipline, I believe in a very definite technique. — Martha Graham

The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual - as we think so will we act. — Martha Graham

The unique must be fulfilled. — Martha Graham

There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. — Martha Graham

Dancing is very like poetry. — Martha Graham

Pity is a corroding thing. — Martha Graham

Dancers have more bones than most people and on the days when you work hard you are sure that you have somehow accumulated more bones than you started with. — Martha Graham

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. — Martha Graham

I love words very much. I've always loved to talk, and I've always love words - the words that rest in your mouth, what words mean and how you taste them and so on. And for me the spoken word can be used almost as a gesture. — Martha Graham

Misery is a communicable disease. — Martha Graham

The only sin is mediocrity. — Martha Graham

One can always lament, you know - but to laugh in the face of life, that's very hard. And for me the great tragedian should also be a great comedian. — Martha Graham

Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. — Martha Graham

I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it. — Martha Graham

Looking at the past is like lolling in a rocking chair. It is so relaxing and you can rock back and forth on the porch, and never go forward. — Martha Graham

Some of you are doomed to be artists. — Martha Graham

Modern dance isn't anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America. — Martha Graham

If you feel depressed you shouldn't go out on the street because it will show on your face and you'll give it to others. Misery is a communicable disease. — Martha Graham

You see, when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out. — Martha Graham

To me, this acquirement of nervous, physical, and emotional concentration is the one element possessed to the highest degree by the truly great dancers of the world. Its acquirement is the result of discipline, of energy in the deep sense. That is why there are so few great dancers. — Martha Graham

It's not my job to look beautiful. It's my job to look interesting. — Martha Graham

Nothing is more revealing than movement. — Martha Graham

We are all of us, unique - each a unique pattern of creativity and if we do not fulfill it, it is lost for all time. — Martha Graham

I'd rather an audience like me than dislike me, but I'd rather they disliked me than be apathetic, because that is the kiss of death. — Martha Graham

How many leaps did Nijinksy take before he made the one that startled the world? He took thousands and thousands and it is that legend that gives us the courage, the energy, and arrogance to go back into the studio knowing that while there is so little time to be born to the instant, you will work again among the many that you may once more be born as one. That is a dancer's world. — Martha Graham

No artist is ahead of his time. He is the time. It is just that others are behind the time. — Martha Graham

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. — Martha Graham

Repetition not for monotony but the ecstasy it induces. — Martha Graham

Dance is the landscape of man's soul. — Martha Graham

I believe that we learn by practice. — Martha Graham

Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground. — Martha Graham

There is only one you in all time. — Martha Graham

What people in the world think of you is really none of your business. — Martha Graham

I think comedy is the most difficult thing in the world, I really do. — Martha Graham

It is difficult to see the great dance effects as they happen, to see them accurately, catch them fast in memory. It is even more difficult to verbalize them for critical discussion. The particular essence of a performance, its human sweep of articulate rhythm in space and in time has no specific terminology to describe it by. — Martha Graham

It takes ten years, usually, to make a dancer. It takes ten years of handling the instrument, handling the material with which you are dealing, for you to know it completely. — Martha Graham

You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice. — Martha Graham

Dance is the hidden language of the soul — Martha Graham

Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing. — Martha Graham

I did not choose to be a dancer. I was chosen. — Martha Graham

I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired. — Martha Graham

To me, the body says what words cannot. I believe that dance was the first art. — Martha Graham

Theater used to be a verb; it used to be an act. But nowadays it is just a noun. It is a place. — Martha Graham

The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted. — Martha Graham