I have to feel that each thing I've learned I can push to another point next time. I'm not very good with repetition. I would rather not work than feel that repetition is the order of the day.

I can't emphasize this idea enough. Getting involved with your collaborator's problems almost always distracts you from your own. That can be tempting. That can be a relief. But it usually leads to disaster.

My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born, in Jay County, to have a college degree. She was educated as a pianist and she wanted to concertize, but when the war came she was married, had a family, so she started teaching.

I have always felt one of the things dance should do - its business being so clearly physical - is challenge the culture's gender stereotypes.

I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.

The notion of the hero as outsider, as alien, is forget it, over, done with. It's not about being against society anymore. It's about standing there, holding something up. It's not pulling away.

when the time came I would do battle with my mother for the right to sit at the center of my own life.