Modern dancers give a sinister portent about our times. The dancers don't even look at one another. They are just a lot of isolated individuals jiggling in a kind of self-hypnosis and dancing with others only to remind themselves that we are not completely alone in this world.

Dance constitutes a true recapturing of... freedom and childish play.

I learned three important things in college-to use a library, to memorize quickly and visually, to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes. What I could not learn was to think creatively on schedule.

The universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind. From this voyage no one returns poor or weary.

There is something fearfully strengthening about cutting free even if the ties bandage the heart itself.

Many other women have kicked higher, balanced longer, or turned faster. These are poor substitutes for passion.

But remember that intent is everything. One does not just jump, one lifts into the air, one rises. In the same way the lifted leg of an arabesque becomes a wing, and not a mechanical leverage like a raised trap door. This is the precise difference between dancing and acrobatics. The dancer tries to express something; the acrobat merely pulls, raises, stretches and grinds. The acrobat is lost in a web of muscles the dancer is all but invisible in projected idea.