quotes by Twyla Tharp

"Creativity is an act of defiance."
— Twyla Tharp

"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home."
— Twyla Tharp

"I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read."
— Twyla Tharp (The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life)

"Life is about moving, it’s about change. And when things stop doing that they’re dead."
— Twyla Tharp

"Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won."
— Twyla Tharp (The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life)

"The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it. Get over it."
— Twyla Tharp

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

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

"Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it."
— Twyla Tharp

"Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them. What we're talking about here is metaphor. Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we are experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It's not only how we express what we remember , it's how we interpret it - for ourselves and others."
— Twyla Tharp

"In those long and sleepless nights when I'm unable to shake my fears sufficiently, I borrow a biblical epigraph from Dostoyevsky's The Demons: I see my fears being cast into the bodies of wild boars and hogs, and I watch them rush to a cliff where they fall to their death.

It's a little more extreme than counting sheep, but it's far more effective for me."
— Twyla Tharp