Quotes from Alvin Ailey

Money is a never-ending problem.

Making dances is an act of progress; it is an act of growth, an act of music, an act of teaching, an act of celebration, an act of joy.

Choreography is mentally draining, but there's a pleasure in getting into the studio with the dancers and the music.

Dance is for everybody. I believe that the dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people.

Lena Horne is the sweetest and most adorable woman in the world.

Choreography is mentally draining, but there's a pleasure in getting into the studio with the dancers and the music.

My lasting impression of Truman Capote is that he was a terribly gentle, terribly sensitive, and terribly sad man.

I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important is the quality of our work.

There was still no likelihood that we could make a living from dance. We were doing it because we loved it... We realized how full we felt; we were surrounded by music and dancing and joy.

To be who you are and become what you are capable of is the only goal worth living.

One of the processes of your life is to constantly break down that inferiority, to constantly reaffirm that I Am Somebody.

To be who you are and become what you are capable of is the only goal worth living.

I always want to have more dancers in my company.

I wanted to explore black culture, and I wanted that culture to be a revelation.

Racism tears down your insides so that no matter what you achieve, you're not quite up to snuff.

We talk too much of black art when we should be talking about art, just art. Black composers must be free to write rondos and fugues, not only protest songs.

I'm interested in putting something on stage that will have a very wide appeal without being condescending; that will reach an audience and make it part of the dance; that will get everybody in the theater.

My feelings about myself have been terrible.

My lasting impression of Truman Capote is that he was a terribly gentle, terribly sensitive, and terribly sad man.

It will take very sophisticated marketing to achieve our aim of bringing more black people into the theater.

I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important is the quality of our work.

The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it's with you all the time.

We still spend more time chasing funds than we do in the studio in creative work.

From his roots as a slave, the American Negro - sometimes sorrowing, sometimes jubilant but always hopeful - has touched, illuminated, and influenced the most remote preserves of world civilisation. I and my dance theater celebrate this trembling beauty.