Twyla Tharp Quotes

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Twyla Tharp

Profession : Dancer

Birth : July 1, 1941

Nobody worked harder than Mozart. By the time he was twenty-eight years old, his hands were deformed because of all the hours he had spent practicing, performing, and gripping a quill pen to compose. That's the missing element in the popular portrait of Mozart.

Twyla Tharp

I have a sort of tactility about music. I go into record stores and just run my fingers over it, the spines.

Twyla Tharp

Let me put it this way: I would like to direct a successful film. An unsuccessful film I would not like to direct. Films are very difficult.

Twyla Tharp

To make real change, you have to be well anchored - not only in the belief that it can be done, but also in some pretty real ways about who you are and what you can do.

Twyla Tharp

When I started making dances in the '60s, narrative dance was sort of off the radar screen. What was important at the time in the avant-garde was minimalism.

Twyla Tharp

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.

Twyla Tharp

There is obviously a power and a truth in action that doesn't lie, which words easily can do.

Twyla Tharp

I don't hate language. I have my own language, but I also enjoy the English language. Obviously, you don't read a lot of literature and not care about language.

Twyla Tharp

There are very few critics who have historical context or authority.

Twyla Tharp

I don't judge. Judgment is not my business. Existing is my business.

Twyla Tharp

Schubert had arguably the same melodic gift as Mozart, but even less support. He didn't have the early exposure, never got to travel anywhere, and yet generated and amassed a body of work that grew and developed and is very profound.

Twyla Tharp

The artist doesn't really think about consequences - he or she does the work, stands back and looks at and thinks, 'Hmm, that could have worked better like this.' But as a person who needs to sell tickets to do the next work, one needs to analyze how it does or does not hit its mark.

Twyla Tharp

When I was a kid, the avant-garde to me was boring because it was just the flip side of being really successful.

Twyla Tharp

Kids should be encouraged to compete.

Twyla Tharp

My father always said, 'I don't care if you're a ditch digger, as long as you're the best ditch digger in the world.'

Twyla Tharp