181 Quotes by Martha Graham

When you start with an idea, or something hits you, then you have to follow that through to the end, and it’s the following through to the end that makes the pattern. That, for me, is choreography.

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body. I don’t leap and jump anymore. I look at young dancers, and I am envious, more aware of what glories the body contains. But sensitivity is not made dull by age.

Modern dance isn’t anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America.

Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.

If you feel depressed you shouldn’t go out on the street because it will show on your face and you’ll give it to others. Misery is a communicable disease.

You don’t pick dance. Dance picks you.

I never thought of myself as being a genius. I don’t know what genius is. I think a far better expression is a retriever, a lovely strong golden retriever that brings things back from the past, or retrieves things from our common blood memory.

I want to make people feel intensely alive. I’d rather have them against me than indifferent.

To me, a building – if it’s beautiful – is the love of one man, he’s made it out of his love for space, materials, things like that.