I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot.

My mother was a dominant force in my life. She had a very specific idea about education, which was: you should know everything about everything. It was quite simple. There was no exclusivity, and there really was no judgment.

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.

I don't think politicians should be allowed into power who are not familiar with their bodies, because that's where our bottom line is. And I know that they would make totally different decisions if they felt responsible simply for their own bodies.

I don't mean this, but I'm going to say it anyway. I don't really think of pop art and serious art as being that far apart.

In those days, male dancers were a rarer breed than women. as they are still today, A good male dancer, one as strong as we were, was very difficult to come by if you couldn't afford to pay them.

There's this expression called postmodernism, which is kind of silly, and destroys a perfectly good word called modern, which now no longer means anything.

Any comic is a tragic soul. Comedy is one of the things that allows one to survive. Particularly if one has been in the process of separating off the emotions, it's one place you can process them.

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.

The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts.

I'm not one who divides music, dance or art into various categories. Either something works, or it doesn't.

It is extremely arrogant and very foolish to think that you can ever outwit your audience.

It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn't think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer.

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

The rewards of dancing are very different from choreographing.

The formal education that I received made little sense to me.

I never studied with Balanchine, but his work was very important to me.

I have not wanted to intimidate audiences. I have not wanted my dancing to be an elitist form. That doesn't mean I haven't wanted it to be excellent.

With each piece I've completed I have worked to make it intact, and each of them has been an equal high. It's like children. A mother refuses to pick out one as a favorite, and I can't do any better with the dances.

I started formal piano training when I was 4. From there I had little violas, and I had dancing lessons of every sort and description, and painting lessons. I had German. And shorthand.

I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot.

In terms of individuals who actually inspired me, very few of the academic people that I had access to had that power over me. Maybe it's simply because I wasn't that committed to geometry.

Dance has never been a particularly easy life, and everybody knows that.

I have the wherewithal to challenge myself for my entire life. That's a great gift.

I was privileged to be able to study a year with Martha Graham, the last year she was teaching.

A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet. I'm beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things.

I think that anyone who's pushed to do the very best that they can is privileged. It's a luxury.

I think people want very much to simplify their lives enough so that they can control the things that make it possible to sleep at night.

The necessity to constantly turn in an excellent performance, to be absolutely wedded to this dedication and this ideal means that as a child you're going to pay for it personally.

I would have to challenge the term, modern dance. I don't really use that term in relation to my work. I simply think of it as dancing. I think of it as moving.

I learned very early that an audience would relax and look at things differently if they felt they could laugh with you from time to time. There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.

'Bum's Rush' is a piece about timing, and everything that's in the piece needs to be with the piece. If people are missing, or marking, or unable to use their voices, the impulses that prompt the action are lost, and its logic crumbles.

'The Creative Habit' is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. 'The Collaborative Habit' is obviously about surviving with other people.

A commission is an invitation to fall in love.

A dancer's life is all about repetition.

After so many years, I've learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns. That's why writers, for example, like to establish routines for themselves.

Art is an investigation.

At the ballet classes I took when I first came to New York, I would see great dancers like Cynthia Gregory and Lupe Serrano. I would look at them and study what they could do, and what I couldn't do. And then I'd think maybe they should try what I could do.

Broadway has some very tight expectations as to what a show is.

Counterpoint is a component that gives real energy, and it is about optimism.

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.

Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it's for engineers trying to solve a problem; it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way.

Critics should be looked at simply as commentators.

Dance is just like film in that it allows for thoughts in movement.

Dance is the most fundamental of all art forms.

Dance should not just divide people into audience and performers. Everyone should be a participant, whether going to classes or attending special events or rehearsals.

Desire is the first thing a modern dancer should have. Skill can be developed. But if you don't have desire as a modern dancer, forget it.

Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.

Everyone has a talent. It's simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck.