To me, this acquirement of nervous, physical, and emotional concentration is the one element possessed to the highest degree by the truly great dancers of the world. Its acquirement is the result of discipline, of energy in the deep sense. That is why there are so few great dancers.

The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual - as we think so will we act.

We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance.

The main thing, of course, always, is the fact that there is only one of you in the world, just one, and if that is not fulfilled then something has been lost. Ambition is not enough; necessity is everything.

You don't pick dance. Dance picks you.

Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully and with inevitability.

No animal ever has an ugly body until it is domesticated. It is the same with the human body.