Merce Cunningham Dance Quotes & Sayings

I've never been starstruck but I may have wanted to strike a star once or twice. — Grumpy Cat

I think of dance as a constant transformation of life itself. — Merce Cunningham

Technically, if I were farther away from the center of the Earth then I'd be subjected to less gravity and then I would weigh less. So I'm not really fat. I'm just not high enough. — Jenny Lawson

It was nice to see a Human smile. So many things looked like smiles but weren't. Sometimes, to feel genuine kindness, I would stare into a mirror and smile at myself, just to remember what one looked like. — Cecil Castellucci

There's no thinking involved in my choreography ... I don't work through images or ideas. I work through the body ... If the dancer dances, which is not the same as having theories about dancing or wishing to dance or trying to dance, everything is there. When I dance, it means: this is what I am doing. — Merce Cunningham

The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion, the steadfast and willing devotion to the labor that makes the classwork not a gymnastic hour and a half, or at the lowest level, a daily drudgery, but a devotion that allows the classroom discipline to become moments of dancing too ... — Merce Cunningham

Evolution is arranged so that a species survives, not so that it will be happy while it survives. — Albert Ellis

Eve was not taken out of Adam's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him. — Matthew Henry

The only way to do it is to do it. — Merce Cunningham

My God! You are almost as beautiful as I am! — Fabio Lanzoni

No rational man could worship a God so simply vengeful — Hilary Mantel

If we have any problems, it's always with the government of the United States. — Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

My dance classes were open to anybody, my only stipulation was that they had to come to the class every day. — Merce Cunningham

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. — Benjamin Disraeli

It's unwise to let rage get the better of you. And you shouldn't hinge everything on whether you'll get to see the Emperor. Being obsessed with one thing like that has made him a sad, lonely man. — Joanne Owen

He seems to be supporting her tenderly. But what holds them together is difficult to pin down.
In her memoir, she wrote that he once dropped her on her hip very painfully, and she had the distinct impression he'd done it on purpose.
What really goes on between two people is very difficult to say. — Barbara Browning

I run about four days per week and do some sort of hike or yoga/stretching on the other three. Kind of self-propelling my body and muscles forward in my own controlled chaos helps me find the ground a little bit easier on the daily. — Madi Diaz

In the long run, I believe that honesty is definitely the best policy. One can get away by being dishonest for a short term, but ultimately, honesty is what pays. — Kapil Dev

You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.
— Merce Cunningham

A thing is incredible, if ever, only after it is told
returned to the world it came out of. — Eudora Welty

Aren't you training a man who could become your most dangerous competitor?"
"That's the only sort of men I like to hire. Dagny, have you lived too long among the looters? Have you come to think that one man's ability is a threat to another?"
"Oh no! But I thought I was almost the only one left who didn't think that. — Ayn Rand