Dance is bigger than the physical body. When you extend your arm, it doesn't stop at the end of your fingers, because you're dancing bigger than that; you're dancing spirit.

People come to see beauty, and I dance to give it to them.

We can go on talking about racism and who treated whom badly, but what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wallow in that or are you going to create your own agenda?

Dancing is bigger than the physical body. Think bigger than that. When you extend your arm, it doesn't stop at the end of your fingers, because you're dancing bigger than that. You're dancing spirit.

Dance is bigger than the physical body. When you extend your arm, it doesn't stop at the end of your fingers, because you're dancing bigger than that; you're dancing spirit.

As a dancer, you really try to stay true to whatever the choreographer/artistic director is giving you. So, now the shoe is on the other foot and I have to trust everyone else - I have to trust the dancer. As I was trusted as a dancer, I trust my dancers.

Concert dance is the hardest kind of dance. We tour constantly, around the world, year in and year out. It just doesn't work for everybody. It's the lifestyle, it's the stamina, it's the love, it's the dedication, it's the commitment, it's all those words.

Dance is not endangered - it will always find a way to express itself.

I believe God has a path for me. He's always had a path for me, and I've always been in the right place at the right time - not because of my efforts, but because of my preparation and because of the guides that I have, the mentors that I have, the spiritual walkers that I've had all my life.

I believe in being prepared. I'm going to say that. Pray, prepare, proceed.

I could say now at 66, yeah, I was a fabulous dancer. I was really terrific, you know. But I was always present. I was present. I was supposed to be where I was supposed to be at the time I was supposed to be.

I don't think of myself as a leader. I am, but I don't think of myself that way. I'm not trying to belittle what I do, but I think of myself as a dancer first. I'll always be a dancer.

I haven't had a family, but I don't think of that as a sacrifice: my dancers are my family.

I want to know who you are as a person, and then I want you to develop as a whole human being.

I was a protege; by the age of 10, I was studying with ballet choreographer Anthony Tudor in a class of adults.

I went to an audition for a Harry Belafonte Roaring Twenties special for choreographer Donald McKayle, but I failed.

I've been in a competitive situation almost all my life. I've been having a competition with myself and trying to be the best I could be.

I've danced all over the world, and people are people. We cannot cut off from each other in life. In order to lead, you can't do that.

If people all over the world, year after year, request that you do 'Revelations,' you do 'Revelations.'

One thing I cannot stand is when people say, 'Hi, how are you?' and they don't wait to hear how I am. They're just going through the motions. I say to people: 'Keep it human. Keep it alive. Don't turn into a robot.' You have to hear what the other person is saying clearly.

People don't remember me for how high my legs went, even though they went up very high, and how many pirouettes I did. They don't remember me for that. They remember me and any other dancer because something touched them inside. It's an indelible memory on the heart and in the mind.

Strive for perfection. Nobody's going to be perfect on this earth. But strive for perfection.

The way Alvin Ailey has transformed modern dance and dance in general is the fact of variety. It's a cornucopia of ways to move. There are choreographers in the company as - as diverse, as different from each other as Donald McKayle and Bill T. Jones, or Jawole Zollar and John Butler, Lar Lubovitch, you know, and Judith Jamison.

The word 'suffering' is not in my vocabulary.

The world is full of ways for people to dance. Concert dance doesn't get its due.

We're dancing from here, from inside, not from outside. You could look at anybody throwing their leg and kick their leg up and a million pirouettes and do all kinds of tricks and stuff like that. But that's not what dance is really about.

You have to dance unencumbered. There's no other way to move. The idea of dance is freedom. It is not exclusiveness, it's inclusiveness.

You wake up white, and you think about certain things every day. You wake up black, and you think about certain things. You wake up Chinese, and you think certain things - but those things aren't major. What's major is that you are good at your craft.

You dont enter a dance studio and say I cant do that. If you do then why are you in the studio in the first place

A man must be strong in that profession, he must have vigor of body and mind, yet I am all out of breath if I walk up a hill; I have not the heart to crush even a fly.

After the first miscarriage, I tried to take the attitude that it was my body's way of telling me that this pregnancy wasn't meant to be.

I think I had a more European outlook about the body and sex. The body is in no way dirty, and sex is something beautiful to give to and share with a lover. It has nothing to do with promiscuity, because I only believe in being in love with one man at a time.

The student body was huge at UT and you had to mature pretty quick, very quick actually. I enjoyed it and it helped me a lot in my life in general - not only in the classroom but on the baseball field as well.

I love the male body, it's better designed than the male mind.

Periods of wholesome laziness, after days of energetic effort, will wonderfully tone up the mind and body.

Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp.

I did as much research as I could and I took ownership of this illness, because if you don't take care of your body, where are you going to live?

I think the human body is beautiful, and I don't really have a huge problem in dealing with it, but it's the context, the environment and what I feel about it that that makes the difference for me.

A great thing happening now in art is that artists are using the figure, the body, clothing, life.

Common sense should tell us that there is no reason for civilians to have access to easily concealable handguns with the capability to shoot through body armor.

The civilizing process has increased the distance between behavior and the impulse life of the animal body.

Well, the years from 10 to 20, when your body, mind and everything is like changing every five minutes, can be pretty torturing. And most of the interesting characters, I think, are somewhat tortured or torturous. I'm 20 now, so I'm only just an adult.

If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.

I figured my body always would be able to repair itself. I think all of us believe that - until you begin to age and get hit with deteriorating joints.

I look at the story, I look at the idea and just try to think of it in terms of that whole body of myth and see where the characters fit in and what they ought to be doing-all those archetypes are there to play with.

The mind's first step to self-awareness must be through the body.

I think we actually punish children out of their relationship with their bodies... we categorically separate mind and body and emotion and intellect.

Hitting Ali in the body or on the arms was like hitting a piece of cement.

The body has a mind of its own.