Quotes from Bill T. Jones

We all agree that marriage is a fundamental right. And in our country, and in our society, there are no second-class citizens.

Living and dying is not the big issue. The big issue is what you're going to do with your time while you are here.

Slavery is a memory of something we cannot remember, and yet we cannot forget.

We can win. We can lose. We can fall down. We can get up and do it over again, better. We can go for it as if we have nothing to lose, knowing we have everything to lose. ... We can tear up a dance floor and put it all back together again. We can talk loud in public. We can be fierce. We can be small. We can be mighty. We can be too much. We can be just enough, just in time. We can. We have to.

Because art does for me what religion does-- it organizes a seemingly chaotic world. Because it is my way of making sense of the world and its changes.

When I am in pain, I must know that beauty always has been and always will be. This is as close to eternity as I need to be.

My friends and family had put the bedroom back together and I woke the next morning thinking, for one brief second, that it was just another beautiful early-spring day. As I sat up, though, my body began to weep even before my mind recognized the cause for grieving. The world would never be the same. Everything I would make from that day on would recall how it had changed. Everything I did for myself would be in the name of what we had been.

We are part of each other and part of something bigger than our own egos. An artist should... bring into the world some vision. Dancers should ask, "What is their work in the service of?"

This is what I call participation in the world of ideas. That is what art-making is.