Quotes & Sayings About Rhythm And Dance

Civilization was a dance, and the ancient Wyr were late to the ball. They donned masks and slipped with silent predatory grace into the ballroom. They watched with sharp eyes that glittered deep in the shadows behind their assumed facades, recording and learning the twist and rhythm of the dance, the social mores, when to bow and press their lips to the back of the hand, how to smile and say good evening, please and thank you and yes, I shall take more sugar with my tea.
All the while they noted the pulse that fluttered at the base of the dancers' necks, the scents of sweat and the quickened breath. — Thea Harrison

The human drama is reaching its denouement. The great unveiling is approaching, a time when the power structures of the world begin to crumble and people of the heart sing out a new truth. Many voices are joining the chorus, many feet are walking the path, many minds are dreaming possibilities for a magnificent future. For beneath the crises that are looming at every level of civilization, the global heart is awakening, beating out the rhythm of a new and glorious dance, calling us to a better way of living. — Anodea Judith

Music is universal too. Even deaf people like to dance, love rhythm, and can kind of pick it up. — Rainn Wilson

A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners
do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay
and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart's. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern
and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place
here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now
arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back - it does not matter which. Because they know they
are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by
it. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Change is ubiquitous. Only: elementary processes cannot be ordered along a common succession of instants. At the extremely small scale of the quanta of space, the dance of nature does not develop to the rhythm kept by the baton of a single orchestral conductor: every process dances independently with its neighbours, following its own rhythm. The passing of time is intrinsic to the world, it is born of the world itself, out of the relations between quantum events which are the world and which themselves generate their own time. — Carlo Rovelli

My heart is burning with love. All I can see is this flame. My heart is burning with passion, like waves on an ocean. I'm at home, wherever I am. And in the room of lovers, I can see with closed eyes the beauty that dances. Behind the veils, intoxicated with love, I too dance the rhythm of this moving world. — Rumi

Mediocrity is no answer to violence. In fact, it probably invites violence. At least the mediocre and the violent appear together as in the old Western movies - the ruffian outlaw band shooting up main street and the little white church with the little white schoolteacher wringing her hands. To cool violence you need rhythm, humor, tempering; you need dance and rhetoric. Not therapeutic understanding. — James Hillman

He look back toward the dance floor and greeted his teeth. She was in Tristan's arms moving gracefully in rhythm with the music. Tristan with cutting quite a swath through the ladies, he knew it shouldn't grate that his brother was dancing with Mary. Tristan knew more than he knew any of the others. It was expected. But still he didn't like the way Tristan watched her through hooded eyes. But then Tristan caught his gaze an issue a silent challenge: cut in. I dare you. — Lorraine Heath

I took several years of dance lessons that included ballet, tap and jazz. They helped a great deal with body control, balance, a sense of rhythm, and timing. — Lynn Swann

Remember this, my darling - remember this. What you achieve on earth is only a small part of the deal. If there's a secret I could whisper, and that you could keep, it would be that it's all inside you already. Every single thing you need. Earth is just a stopover. A kind of game. Make it a star game. If I could give you a gift, it would be to teach you how to stay free inside that game, to find the glory inside yourself, beyond the roles and the drama, so you can dance the dance of the game of life with a little more rhythm, a little more abandon, a little more shaking-those-hips. — Annie Kagan

Of what is the body made? It is made of emptiness and rhythm. At the ultimate heart of the body, at the heart of the world, there is no solidity. Once again, there is only the dance. — George Leonard

To trace the development of mind from earliest times ... requires ... not a categorical concept, but a functional one ... The most promising operational principle for this purpose is the principle of individuation.[p. 310]" "[yet she also says:] ... we have no physical model of this endless rhythm of individuation and involvement, we do have its image in the world of art, most purely in dance; ... this dialectic of vital continuity ... [p. 355] — Susanne K. Langer

Well, if I use Hispanic culture I get corruption and really good salsa music. If I use Chinese culture I get rigid thinking and decent Szechwan. If I use Islamic culture I get ... not damned much of anything. And ditto for Africa although at least the rhythm is good and you can dance to it. But if I use Western European Culture I get industry, higher standards of living, longer lifespans and a generally happier society. Damn, I think I'll just have to go with WesternCiv even if I do have to put up with the Lutherans. — John Ringo

Dancehall has always had a homophobic problem, but you go to dance parties in Jamaica, and some of the biggest dancers are kinda gay, just not outspoken about it. Dancehall was the first kind of music I was DJing, and it was always more about the rhythm. — Diplo

Reincarnation is a dance. It is a movement of life to the rhythm of the universe. Spirit and matter join together as one dancing partner. They dance and it goes on forever. — Frederick Lenz

There was no violence, no speed. It moved to the rhythm of an elder dance, putting all the rituals of the world to shame. Black, silver, gold and moon-opal, night and sea, fire, earth, air and water. — Tanith Lee

Sometimes we focus too much on the lyrics that we forget to dance to the music. And sometimes we dance to the music and don't listen to the lyrics. Let the rhythm guide you. Let the lyrics inspire you. — Alexa Anderson

I know I can't dance. I am the worst dancer. I have no rhythm. I just do step-and-snap. I love it in the privacy of my own home and every once in a while at a club. But singing and dancing are my two greatest fears. — Hope Solo

Dancing is spiritual. Dancing is personal. Some people look at a dancing person and say, What a total show-off. They only notice the body of the dancing person. They look at the way the elbows jut out, the way the hips shake and the neck bends. They criticize all of these things, saying, This dancing person shouldn't be dancing. This dancing person has no rhythm.
But the dancer is immune to all of this. — Will Walton

Nature paces its change in gradual steps, and in this time of renewal, I danced in sync to the rhythm of life. — Lynn C. Tolson

The impact of music is so great that you'll leave your book and start dancing. — Michael Bassey Johnson

In Hinduism, Shiva the Cosmic Dancer, is perhaps the most perfect personification of the dynamic universe. Through his dance, Shiva sustains the manifold phenomena in the world, unifying all things by immersing them in his rhythm and making them participate in the dance - a magnificent image of the dynamic unity of the Universe. — Fritjof Capra

Each heartbeat begins with a single, electrical impulse, or "spark." The distinctive sound we hear through a stethoscope, or when we place our head on a loved one's chest, is the sound of the heart valves opening and closing in perfect synchronicity with each other. It is a two-party rhythm - a delicate dance of systole and diastole, which propels the heart's electrically charged particles through its chambers roughly every second of the day, every day of our lives. — Jessi Kirby

Ballroom dancing was inherently social, but steps replaced words and beats ironed out pauses. The shy, the awkward, and the weird found a home where good rhythm or a barn of a memory vanquished their shyness, awkwardness, and weirdness. Some got good while others stayed middling. Everyone, though, had fun. — Erin Bomboy

I belong to clever words and bedtime stories
even a good riddle or two
I belong to the sound of music
and dance to my own rhythm
I belong to the sunlight on a chilly autumn day
when the world awaits a new beginning
I belong by the shore under a star-filled sky
with the ocean caressing my feet
I belong everywhere.
And anyway I please. — M.J. Abraham

We have no physical model of this endless rhythm of individuation and involvement, we do have its image in the world of art, most purely in dance. — Susanne Katherina Langer

Karlheinz Stockhausen to journalist: "I heard the piece Aphex Twin of Richard James carefully: I think it would be very helpful if he listens to my work "Song of the Youth," which is electronic music, and a young boy's voice singing with himself. Because he would then immediately stop with all these post-African repetitions, and he would look for changing tempi and changing rhythms, and he would not allow to repeat any rhythm if it [was] varied to some extent and if it did not have a direction in its sequence of variations."

Aphex Twin to journalist: "I thought he should listen to a couple of tracks of mine: 'Didgeridoo,' then he'd stop making abstract, random patterns you can't dance to". — Karlheinz Stockhausen

I'm trying to learn that in my Christian walk as well. If I'll move to the beat of the Spirit and relinquish control of my life to Him, I'll be able to dance to the music God has playing in His head rather than movin' and agroovin' to the catchy little tunes I've got going in my own. For when I allow the Lord to provide the accompaniment to my life, I discover a richly layered soundtrack more beautiful than anything I could compose myself. But following God's beat, dancing to His rhythm, trusting in His sovereignty - all that can be hard for a rhythmically challenged, control-loving person like me. Because when it comes right down to it, I'm a headstrong little girl who wants her own way in pretty much every area of life. Fortunately, I have a Father who loves me in spite of that. But while He loves me as I am, He also loves me too much to leave me that way. So He insists I follow His lead in order to "grow up" in my salvation (1 Peter 2:2). Becoming more like Jesus and less like me. — Joanna Weaver

A loud song with a thumping beat rang from Jay's pocket. He gave me a goofy grin and began to bop his head back and forth to the rhythm. Oh, no-not the crazy booty dance.
"Please don't," I begged.
Jay broke into his funky ringtone dance, shoulders bouncing and hips moving from side to side. People around us stepped away, surprised, then began to laugh and cheer him on. I pressed my fingers against my lips to hide an embarrassed smile. Just as the ringtone was about to end, he gave a little bow, straightened up, and answered the call. — Wendy Higgins

Dance with me."
Blinking, first at his offered palm and then at his features, I asked, "Why?"
Not immediately replying, he reached for me, pulled me to my feet, and slid an arm around my waist. I allowed him to hold my body against his, fit our hands together, and sway to the lovely music. Begrudgingly, I admitted to myself he had great rhythm. Someone had taught him to dance.
Jehtro dipped his mouth to my ear, his beard tickling my neck as he finally whispered an answer to my question, "Because you want me to hold you, but you don't know how to ask. — Penny Reid

The way we move within time is a kind of dance. We are always keeping time within one rhythm or another. Music, of course, is exemplary. One reason we love music so much is that it's so complete and the notes harmonize with one another in time to make a beautiful, ideal statement; not like our daily life where the rhythms are more subtle or hard to find or are constantly being interrupted or changed in ways that aren't so easy to handle. — Mel Weitsman

Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It's the rhythm of your life. It's the expression in time and movement,in happiness, joy, sadness and envy. — Jacques D'Amboise

The Universe has a pulse and rhythm of its own, and it wants to carry you with it-so if you dance with Spirit, just remember to let it lead. — Sonia Choquette

Fire!
Your nose ignites,
flameless kerosene
(and, some say, Drano)
laced with ephedrine
you want to cry
powdered demons bite
through cartilage and sinuses,
take dead aim at your
brain, jump inside
want to scream
troops of tapping feet
fall into rhythm,
marking time, right
between your eyes
get the urge to dance
louder, louder, ultra
gray-matter power,
shock waves of energy
mushroom inside your head
you want to let go
detonate,
annihilate barriers,
bring down the walls,
unleashing floodwaters,
freeing long-captive dreams
to ride the current
through
arteries and capillaries,
pulsing, rushing,
raging torrents
pounding against your heart
sweeping you away — Ellen Hopkins

When I was a little kid, I took tap and ballet. I've always loved to dance. I'm a rhythm machine. — Tommy Lee

The Earth spins once a day. It goes around the sun once a year. The moon goes round the earth every 28 days. Your heart beats in a rhythm particular only to you. Everything has its drumbeat and everything contributes to the dance. You've just got to know when to lead and when to follow. — William Meikle

Let me put it this way. Love is like learning how to dance. When you first hear the music, you're full of passion and you don't care who's watching because you just want to fling yourself around like an idiot. It's clumsy and it's full of missteps and falls and sometimes you're not even dancing to the same tune, but you don't notice because you're so carried away by the music.
But then the music begins to wane, and you start stepping on each other's toes. Some think that's the truth of the relationship and run. But the truth is, that's where true love begins. That's when you start to learn each other's rhythm and how to move together. And if you stick with it long enough, you might even learn to be graceful. — Richard Paul Evans

My impression is that a sense of rhythm, which has no analog in language, is unique and that its correlation with movement is unique to human beings. Why else would children start to dance when they're two or three? Chimpanzees don't dance. — Oliver Sacks

Existence is movement. Action is movement. Existence is defined by the rhythm of forces in natural balance. ( ... ) It is our appreciation for dance that allows us to see clearly the rhythms of nature and to take natural rhythm to a plane of well-organised art and culture. — Rudolf Von Laban

The focus of my playing is the groove, and every time I find a new rhythm, I find I can write a bunch of new songs. Learning how to dance, or drum, or to swing my body in a new way is the fundamental way I find a new riff. Because when you learn to swing your body in a new way, you begin to swing with your instrument differently. — Stone Gossard

Pain is a partner I did not request;
This is a dance I did not ask to join;
whirled in a waltz when I would stop and rest,
Jolted and jerked, I ache in bone and loin.
Pain strives to hold me close in his embrace;
If I resist and try to pull away
His grasp grows tighter; closer comes his face;
hotter his breath. If he is here to stay
Then must I learn to dance this painful dance,
Move to its rhythm, keep my lagging feet
In time with his. Thus have I a chance
To work with pain, and so may pain defeat.
Pain is my partner. If I dance with pain
Then may this wedlock be not loss but gain. — Madeleine L'Engle

Compassion for oneself requires a willingness to step OUTside your own story and see it with loving eyes; the courage to recognize truth and follow new leads; the wish for your own heart to heal and the intention to add a vibrant rhythm to enhance the greater dance around you as you begin to join in. — Laurie Perez

A couple of hours after Sunset Michael Robartes returned and told me that I would have to learn the steps of an exceedingly antique dance, because before my initiation could be perfected I had to join three times in a magical dance, for rhythm was the wheel of Eternity, on which alone the transient and accidental could be broken, and the spirit set free. — W.B.Yeats

I was born by the sea, and I have noticed that all the great events of my life have taken place by the sea. My first idea of movement, of the dance, certainly came from the rhythm of the waves. — Isadora Duncan

Poems are a dance of language that comes out when my body taps into the rhythm of language. Rhythm gets us naked and exposes our selves completely. — Kim Hyesoon

Let those who can sing to sing on top of their voices and those who dance to dance to their very best rhythm. — Euginia Herlihy

If you're wired a certain way, you'll always be in morion, clicking to your own rhythm, all of it in four-four time, avoiding convention and predictability and control as you would a sickness, the whole world waiting for you like an enormous dance pavilion lit by colored lights and surrounded with palm trees. I'm not talking about the dirty boogie. The music of the spheres is right outside your bedroom window. — James Lee Burke

There are likewise three kinds of dancers: first, those who consider dancing as a sort of gymnastic drill, made up of impersonal and graceful arabesques; second, those who, by concentrating their minds, lead the body into the rhythm of a desired emotion, expressing a remembered feeling or experience. And finally, there are those who convert the body into a luminous fluidity, surrendering it to the inspiration of the soul. — Isadora Duncan

If you dance to rhythm of music in your heart, you will restore your soul, and revive your spirit. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Amelia was instantly distracted when she heard one of her favorite songs: What a Wonderful World made famous by Louis Armstrong. The woman singing did the song justice as she sang:
I see trees of gree, red roses, too.
I see them bloom, for me and you.
And I think to myself.
What a wonderful world!
Before she could blink an eye, Rick pulled her into his arms in a waltz position.
He gave her a wink and said flirtatiously, "May I have this dance, my love?"
As they danced to the rhythm of the music, Amelia said, "Don't ever stop flirting with me, no matter how old we get."
"Never! — Linda Weaver Clarke

LIFE is like to Dance, and which can be enjoyed by the Rhythm of the TIME — Samar Sudha

Timing is so important! If you are going to be successful in dance, you must be able to respond to rhythm and timing. It's the same in the Spirit. People who don't understand God's timing can become spiritually spastic, trying to make the right things happen at the wrong time. They don't get His rhythm - and everyone can tell they are out of step. They birth things prematurely, threatening the very lives of their God-given dreams. — T.D. Jakes

The essentials of poetry are rhythm, dance, and the human voice. — Earle Birney

Men have dragged us by our hair through the ages, and whether they give us crumbs or bright, shiny rocks, they truly give us nothing at all. If you have not opened your legs for them so that they could drawl out as babies or crawl in as men, they they will leave you to starve like a dog on the street. So now we are done playing the way they want us to play. Now we are moving to music they cannot hear, to a rhythm they cannot understand. They call it madness and we call it truth and find me the magistrate you can trust to judge between the two? Bah. So we dance on, we dance on. — Toby Barlow

Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can't fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance. — Jack Kerouac

I tried to play in this world and live life carefree. I tried, despite Antonio, to be happy. I should've realized when I was sixteen and Antonio slid onto the leather seat next to me that happiness was being stolen from me. Life is ugly and hard and I tried to do my best to dance through it but what I should've learned was that if the beat is off and you can't catch a rhythm, you just look like a fool. I was a fool to believe — Nicole Reid

Live life in moments, not in days or years or your schedules. It's our misconception - most of the time - that we live our lives the way we want. Every single step that we take is influenced by others. Only the part that we hide from everyone else and keep deep within our heart, is our own. I strongly urge you all to realize that hidden part of yours. Go, live that part. Live your life. Don't let your dreams die within you. Trust me, your struggle, your fight, will be worth the risk in opening yourself up. Get up. Inhale the air of passion. Start your journey. Grab your dreams. Enjoy your mistakes. Dance to the rhythm of your heartbeats. Smile. Laugh. Love. Live.' Author — Savi Sharma

Fern had no rhythm. Bailey wasn't much better. But his lack of skill wasn't exactly his fault. He moved his chair forward and back in a parody of the simple step-touch move everyone resorted to at a school dance. He bobbed his head in time with the music and his face wore an expression that said "Hell, yeah," even though his body said "No way. — Amy Harmon

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

I work grief and sadness out of my body when I dance, and I bring in joy and rhythm. — Inga Muscio

You are my heart, my soul," he said, his arms going around my waist and holding me tightly. "As you are mine," I repeated. The magic in the air got stronger, thrumming through the forest, matching the rhythm of our breathing, matching the beating of our hearts. "Dance with me, this night and for the rest of our nights," he said. "For as long as the moon shines in the sky and for as long as we live underneath her. — Keri Arthur

I suppose I've got a natural rhythm. When I was little, I used to just dance a lot and have some fun. I'd never been taught to dance. I've never been to dance school. I do my own little dance moves. — Olly Murs

Fear and failure, they go hand in hand. They're like dance partners with great rhythm. — Hannah Brencher

Sticking your nose in a book might seem like the very opposite of grabbing life by the balls, but reading had always been one of my great loves, and it was one of the things I was most terrified to lose. Sure, there were always audiobooks, but the holy communion of bringing your eyes to paper and sweeping them across the page, left to right, left to right, left to right, the rhythm of that dance, the quiet of it, the sound of the page turning, the look of crinkled covers stained with the coffee you were drinking when you read that chapter that changed your life--you didn't get any of that when listening to an audiobook, and I wanted as much of that as I could get, while I still could. — Nicole C. Kear

There are those who dance to the rhythm that is played to them, those who only dance to their own rhythm, and those who don't dance at all. — Jose Bergamin

Whatever your difficulty, whatever your hardship in life: Dance and make the song you sing your prayer. Sing it courageously, and with each step strengthen yourself with the knowledge and wisdom of your elders, so that whatever next happens, you can survive and not lose your rhythm. — Red Haircrow

Just as today science recognizes the constant recurrence of simple, tiny atomic particles in all sort of organized matter, our ancestors had the intuition that there was a secret rhythm in Nature which was the same in every single natural manifestation. A crane dance must mirror star dances, and human dance is an alphabet to decipher the unknown. — Pippa Pralen

I would enjoy venturing into music, as I do write songs and compose music! And, of course, dance, rhythm and performance are in my blood, so eventually I see myself doing something in that area, surely! — Jiah Khan

I'm no dancer. I got rhythm, I can dance if I need to, but I'm not Chris Brown. He's an amazing dancer. If I'm not going to be amazing at it, I'm not gon' do it. I'm gonna do what works for me, and you're going to feel it 'cause it's me. — Trey Songz

Rock has to absorb other rhythmic forms, because the underlying rhythm of music changes with fashion, and people like to move differently, and the underlying rhythms have to be the ones that people want to dance to. — Mick Jagger

Again the dance hall, the money rhythm, the love that comes over the radio, the impersonal, wingless touch of the crowd. A despair that reaches down to the very soles of the boots, an ennui, a desperation. In the midst of the highest mechanical perfection to dance without joy, to be so desperately alone, to be almost inhuman because you are human. If there were life on the moon what more nearly perfect, joyless evidence of it could there be than this. If to travel away from the sun is to reach the chill idiocy of the moon, then we have arrived at our goal and life is but the cold, lunar incandescence of the sun. This is the dance of ice-cold life in the hollow of an atom, and the more we dance the colder it gets. — Henry Miller

When we step in the name of love, we cannot rhyme if we don't have the same RHYTHM, and we cannot have the same rhythm if we are not listening to the same BEAT.
It takes someone who understands the rhythm and melody of your "heartbeat" to dance to it. — Olaotan Fawehinmi

Now I am going to reveal to you something which is very pure, a totally white thought. It is always in my heart; it blooms at each of my steps ... The Dance is love, it is only love, it alone, and that is enough ... I, then, it is amorously that I dance: to poems, to music but now I would like to no longer dance to anything but the rhythm of my soul. — Isadora Duncan

Modern physics had shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter. For modern physicists ... Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter. — Fritjof Capra

A voice said: One. One. One, two. One, two. Then the footsteps went back into the distance. After a while, another voice said: One, two, three, four- And the universe came into being. It was wrong to call it a big bang. That would just be noise, and all that noise could create is more noise and a cosmos full of random particles. Matter exploded into being, apparently as chaos, but in fact as a chord. The ultimate power chord. Everything, all together, streaming out in one huge rush that contained within itself, like reverse fossils, everything that it was going to be. And, zigzagging through the expanding cloud, alive, that first wild live music. This had shape. It had spin. It had rhythm. It had a beat, and you could dance to it. Everything did. — Terry Pratchett

It doesn't matter if I'm off the beat. It doesn't matter if I'm snapping to the rhythm. It doesn't matter if I look like a complete goon when I dance. It is my dance. It is my moment. It is mine. And dance I will. Try and stop me. You'll probably get kicked in the face. — Dan Pearce

When it comes to making the right moves at the right time, your dance partner is life itself or what can be referred to as your destiny. The more you pay attention and practice intuitive decision making skills, the better you will become at sensing the unique rhythm of your life. — Paul O'Brien

Watching dance isn't about picking up moves. It's about noting the relationships between motion and space and rhythm to absorb a greater concept — Kathryn Craft

All things are aggregations of atoms that dance & by their movement produce sound. When the rhythm of the dance changes, the sound it produces also changes ... Each atom perpetually sings its song, and the sound at every moment creates dense subtle forms. — Alexandra David-Neel

When each partner loves so completely that he has forgotten to ask himself whether or not he is loved in return; when he only knows that he loves and is moving to its music
then, and then only are two people able to dance perfectly in tune to the same rhythm. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I watched her - the way her shoulders moved with the tilt of her head, how her smile lit up the six people around her, how her hair, tucked behind her ears, framed her face like baby's breath. I thought about how the sound of her heart beating sounded the rhythm for our dance atop the magnolia floor. I wanted to tell her all this, but didn't know how. Just because something is broken doesn't mean it's no good. Doesn't mean you throw it away. It just means it's broken, and broken is okay. I wanted to tell her that broken is still beautiful, still works, still wakes me in the morning, and at the end of every day past and those to come, I can love broken. — Charles Martin

I stared in awe at the Lincoln Memorial. If Honest Abe had come to life and somehow managed to lift his bony twenty-three-foot, four-inch frame from his throne, what would he say? What would he do? Would he break-dance? Would he pitch pennies against the curbside? Would he read the paper and see that the Union he saved was now a dysfunctional plutocracy, that the people he freed were now slaves to rhythm, rap, and predatory lending, and that today his skill set would be better suited to the basketball court than the White House? — Paul Beatty

I used to love to see Willie Pep and Ray Robinson. To me, the epitome of a great athlete is a great boxer. I just love the rhythm of seeing a man dance, slip punches. I loved the dancers and boxers. I would see them and be mesmerized. — Emanuel Steward

The fields that push up the corn, and the water that rushes down the ravine, the juice of the grape, and the life of a man as it flows past him, are all one and the same thing. The sole unity in life is the unity of rhythm. A rhythm to which we all dance; men, apples, ravines, ploughed fields, carts among the corn, houses, horses, and the sun. The stuff that is in you, Gauguin, will pound through a grape tomorrow, because you and the grape are one. When I paint a peasant labouring in the field, I want people to feel the peasant flowing down into the soil, just as the corn does, and the soil flowing up into the peasant. I want them to feel the sun pouring into the peasant, into the field, the corn, the plough, and the horses, just as they all pour back into the sun. When you begin to feel the universal rhythm in which everything on earth moves, you begin to understand life ... . — Irving Stone

What is this, Enki?" says the Queen. "Do you not honor me?"
Enki's smile is wide and bright. "I give you the greatest honor," he says.
"You are dressed in the manner of a slave," says she, "in a city where there are none."
"There aren't," he agrees, though now his smile seems too sharp for his words. "But there is the verde."
"And what of it?"
"I am dressed in the manner of my people."
"Are we not your people?" And we see that the Queen is torn between amusement and anger. Enki is leading her in a dance, but has not tapped out its rhythm.
"You are everything to me."
"And yet you come before us hardly as a king."
"I come before you," says Enki, "as a simple verde boy." He takes a quick step back, almost skipping, and his dust-lightened hair bobs around his ears. "I will leave you as a king." And when the drums start, that's how he dances: as a king. — Alaya Dawn Johnson

There was some rhythm, some ecstasy in this dance of flight that expressed the fact that happiness which touches depths and rises beyond physical confines is as old as consciousness, yet ever renewed, and is like the glorying flight of the birds — Elyne Mitchell

But the soul of Africa, its integrity, the slow inexorable pulse of its life, is its own and of such singular rhythm that no outsider, unless steeped from childhood in its endless, even beat, can ever hope to experience it, except only as a bystander might experience a Masai war dance knowing nothing of its music nor the meaning of its steps. — Beryl Markham

Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love? — Eugene O'Neill