Quotes from Twyla Tharp

You have to believe there's something at the other side. And you have to have faith in yourself. You have to think that you have the tools to accomplish it.

I'm not one who divides music, dance or art into various categories. Either something works, or it doesn't.

The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightening bold of inspiration, maybe more. And this routine is available to everyone.

Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.

Kids should be encouraged to compete.

What is music about? You can't listen to one era, one composer, and know what music is about.

Once you accept the power of spine in the creative act, you will become much more efficient in your creativity. You will still get lost on occasion, but having a spine will anchor you.

I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.

Everything present is included in the past somewhere; nobody's present pops out of nowhere.

I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot.

Critics should be looked at simply as commentators.

When I say I can see through clothes, sometimes I try to use it as an X-ray vision to look into the dancer and see who this dancer is right now, at this exact moment in time. I live inside them in a way.

If I didn't believe in myself as a dancer, I wouldn't choreograph.

Creativity requires quite a lot of faith - not just in yourself but also in the knowledge that you have the right to proceed, even when you may not know exactly what you're doing.

No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.

At the ballet classes I took when I first came to New York, I would see great dancers like Cynthia Gregory and Lupe Serrano. I would look at them and study what they could do, and what I couldn't do. And then I'd think maybe they should try what I could do.

The rewards of dancing are very different from choreographing.

My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born, in Jay County, to have a college degree. She was educated as a pianist and she wanted to concertize, but when the war came she was married, had a family, so she started teaching.

Life is about moving, it's about change. And when things stop doing that they're dead.

Work is work; wherever I'm working, I do the best I can. If the actual dollars come from investors as opposed to taxpayers and patrons, what's the difference?

There is a moral dimension, for me, in anything that's any good.

I look for dancers who have all the technique in the world. But they must be dancers who are open-minded, who are willing to forget that they know anything. They also have to be gorgeous; they must have a clear image of themselves and strong personalities.

The content and thematic materials of dance is, of itself, like boxing. You play tennis and baseball. But boxing is not a sport you play: you stand up and do it.