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?

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

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.

And the basis on which we agreed to operate with them involved a manifesto, where it states that we proceed from different ideologies and policies. One thing that we insisted on was that they should take an oath to reject racism and discrimination.

Racism is a refuge for the ignorant. It seeks to divide and to destroy. It is the enemy of freedom, and deserves to be met head-on and stamped out.

Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' Wouldn't they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism.

Using the power you derive from the discovery of the truth about racism in South Africa, you will help us to remake our part of the world into a corner of the globe on which all - of which all of humanity can be proud.

Violence and racism are bad. Whenever they occur they are to be condemned and we should not turn a blind eye to them.

Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.

Everybody's scared for their ass. There aren't too many people ready to die for racism. They'll kill for racism but they won't die for racism.

My answer to those who oppose my appointment as CEO is that this is really a decision of the YWCA. They want to strengthen their grassroots to advocate on behalf of women's and children's empowerment and ending racism.

The fact is that racism, despite all the doomsayers, has diminished.

People have been killing because of racial differences since the time of Adam and Eve, but in this country racism has been primarily aimed at African Americans.

Racism cannot be cured solely by attacking some of the results it produces, like discrimination in housing or in education.

As much as everyone wants to downplay racism, it exists. There's a great mistrust among some African-Americans of white people.

I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.

I was born and raised in the oldest settled part of the nation and in an environment in which racism was officially mooted.

Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism.

In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.

If only Al Sharpton were around, Lincoln would have known he was a victim of racism.

Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.