Alvin Ailey Quotes

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Alvin Ailey

Profession : Dancer

Birth : January 5, 1931

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.

Alvin Ailey

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

Alvin Ailey

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

Alvin Ailey

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

Alvin Ailey

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

Alvin Ailey

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

Alvin Ailey

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.

Alvin Ailey

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.

Alvin Ailey

I always want more.

Alvin Ailey

Nothing personal; I just don't have people over.

Alvin Ailey

Sometimes you feel bad about yourself when there's no reason to.

Alvin Ailey

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

Alvin Ailey

I feel an obligation to use black dancers because there must be more opportunities for them, but not because I'm a black choreographer talking to black people.

Alvin Ailey

Its roots are in American Negro culture, which is part of the whole country's heritage, but the dance speaks to everyone... Otherwise, it wouldn't work.

Alvin Ailey

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

Alvin Ailey

I'm attracted to long-legged girls with long arms and a little head.

Alvin Ailey

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

Alvin Ailey

If you live in the elite world of dance, you find yourself in a world rife with racism. Let's face it.

Alvin Ailey

In this business, life is one long fund-raising effort.

Alvin Ailey

My feelings about myself have been terrible.

Alvin Ailey