Martha Graham

Misery is a communicable disease.

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.

No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.

Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place.

First we have to believe, and then we believe.

You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost.

Learn by practice.

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.

Censorship is the height of vanity.

The only sin is mediocrity.

Nothing is more revealing than movement.

The body never lies.

Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

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.

The body says what words cannot.

Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body.

I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer's body, we as audience must see ourselves, not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of the miracle that is a human being.

Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.