44 Quotes by Alvin Ailey

Nothing personal; I just don't have people over.

No matter what you write or choreograph, you feel it is not enough.

My feelings about myself have been terrible.

I wanted to explore black culture, and I wanted that culture to be a revelation.

DeFrantz's study...is not the first book about the protean Ailey, who was born in hardscrabble Texas in 1931 and died in 1989 after creating close to 80 works. But it is perhaps the most comprehensive, combining biography, criticism, the analysis of dance criticism, and a sort of corporate history, siting the now firmly established Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in the international cultural landscape.

Everything in dancing is style, allusion, the essence of many thoughts and feelings. The abstraction of many moments.

Money is a never-ending problem.

But the dance speaks to everyone. Otherwise it wouldn't work.

My dancers must be able to do anything, and I don't care if they are black or white or purple or green. I want to help show my people how beautiful they are. I want to hold up the mirror to my audience that says this is the way people can be, this is how open people can be.