There is a force, a quickness that is translated through you into action. If you block it, the world will not have it.

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

To me, a building - if it's beautiful - is the love of one man, he's made it out of his love for space, materials, things like that.

The reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living.

The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist. It is a miracle. And the dance is a celebration of that miracle.

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

A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish. After all, I choreographed for myself. I never choreographed what I could not do. I changed steps in Medea and other ballets to accommodate the change. But I knew. And it haunted me. I only wanted to dance.