I think comedy is the most difficult thing in the world, I really do.

Looking at the past is like lolling in a rocking chair. It is so relaxing and you can rock back and forth on the porch, and never go forward.

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

I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer's body, we as audience must see ourselves, not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of the miracle that is a human being.

In 1980, a well-meaning fundraiser came to see me and said, "Miss Graham, the most powerful thing you have going for you to raise money is your respectability." I wanted to spit. Respectable! Show me any artist who wants to be respectable.

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.

My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.