I've always thought my creative life began the moment my mother called me Twyla.

I repeat the wake-up, the workout, the quick shower, the breakfast of three hard-boiled egg whites and a cup of coffee, the hour to make my morning calls and deal with correspondence, the two hours of stretching and working out ideas by myself in the studio ... That's my day, every day. A dancer's life is all about repetition.

The more you fail in private, the less you will fail in public.

I often say that in making dances I can make a world where I think things are done morally, done democratically, done honestly.

It's vital to establish some rituals-automatic but decisive patterns of behavior-at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.

Modern dancers should be doing things no one else is doing, and it should come from the gut.

I've survived inattention. I hope to God I survive attention.