Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery - what it all means, the way the little bone near the ankle relates itself to the floor for a perfect stance, a perfect plie.

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.

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

My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.

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.

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.

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. The instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived ... the human body.