Twyla Tharp Quotes

77 Sourced Quotes

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.

Twyla Tharp
Our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable.

Twyla Tharp
Alone is a fact, a condition where no one else is around. Lonely is how you feel about that.

Twyla Tharp
When the time came I would do battle with my mother for the right to sit at the center of my own life.

Twyla Tharp
The art of these Fifties movies was in sustaining forever the moment before sex.

Twyla Tharp
Dance is simply the refinement of human movement — walking, running, and jumping. We are all experts. There should be no art form more accessible than dance, yet no art is more mystifying in the public imagination.

Twyla Tharp
Dancers are allowed, indeed encouraged, to remain children forever.

Twyla Tharp
Every work of art needs a spine – an underlying theme, a motive for coming into existence. It doesn't have to be apparent to the audience. But you need it at the start of the creative process to guide you and keep you going.

Twyla Tharp
When you stimulate your body, your brain comes alive in ways you can't simulate in a sedentary position.

Twyla Tharp
Destiny, quite often, is a determined parent. Mozart was hardly some naive prodigy who sat down at the keyboard and, with God whispering in his ears, let music flow from his fingertips. It's a nice image for selling tickets to movies, but whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and preparation, you won't know how to harness the power of that kiss.

Twyla Tharp
Whom the gods wish to destroy, they give unlimited resources.

Twyla Tharp
Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. If you're generous to someone, if you do something to help him out, you are in effect making him lucky. This is important. It's like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune.

Twyla Tharp
The first steps of a creative act are like groping in the dark: random and chaotic, feverish and fearful, a lot of busy-ness with no apparent or definable end in sight.

Twyla Tharp
Creativity is an act of defiance. You're challenging the status quo. You're questioning accepted truths and principles. You're asking three universal questions that mock conventional wisdom: Why do I have to obey the rules? Why can't I be different? Why can't I do it my way?

Twyla Tharp
Everything that happens in my day is a transaction between the external world and my internal world. Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it. Without the time and effort invested in getting ready to create, you can be hit by a thunderbolt and it'll just leave you stunned.

Twyla Tharp
Doing is better than not doing, and if you do something badly you'll learn to do it better.

Twyla Tharp
I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.

Twyla Tharp