Martha Graham Quotes

Various parts of my body told me that in the future they would appreciate it if I slept lying down on a bed instead of sitting at the counter of Black Cat Coffee. I quietly reassured them that this was an unusual situation, and had the machinery make me some bread as a breakfast.

Some individuals may perceive their losing fight with gravity as a sharp pain in their back, others as the unflattering contour of their body, others as constant fatigue, yet others as an unrelentingly threatening environment. Those over forty may call it old age. And yet all these signals may be pointing to a single problem so prominent in their own structure, as well as others, that it has been ignored: they are off balance, they are at war with gravity.

Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it's harder to swing. Plus my feet hurt.

A tree falls the way it leans.

I dance all the time. I'm almost constantly moving.

A point of rest alone explains motion.

Heavy is the root of light.

Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.

Never slouch as doing so compresses the lungs, overcrowds other vital organs, rounds the back, and throws you off balance.

The stone that is thrown into the air is none the worse for falling down, and none the better for going up.

A man walking is never in balance, but always correcting for imbalance.

The walking of Man is falling forwards.

Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.

I am absorbed in the magic of movement and light. Movement never lies. It is the magic of what I call the outer space of the imagination.

The dance, just as the performance of the actor, is kinesthetic art, art of the muscle sense. The awareness of tension and relaxation within his own body, the sense of balance that distinguishes the proud stability of the vertical from the risky adventures of thrusting and falling--these are the tools of the dancer.

Every tub sits on its bottom.

I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.

The art of living is based on rhythm - on give & take, ebb & flow, light & dark, life & death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good & bad, right & wrong, yours & mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, 'the dance of life,' metamorphosis.

Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.

Mythology tells us that where you stumble, there your treasure is ... The world is a match for us, and we’re a match for the world. And where it seems most challenging lies the greatest invitation to find deeper and greater power in ourselves.

Walking . . . is how the body measures itself against the earth.

Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance

My body shape was made to get into the perfect aerodynamic position.

The unifying of opposites is the eternal process.

Here lies a she sun, and a he moon there; She gives the best light to his sphere; Or each is both, and all, and so They unto one another nothing owe; And yet they do, but are So just and rich in that coin which they pay, That neither would, nor needs forbear, nor stay; Neither desires to be spared nor to spare. They quickly pay their debt, and then Take no acquittances, but pay again; They pay, they give, they lend, and so let fall No such occasion to be liberal. More truth, more courage in these two do shine, Than all thy turtles have and sparrows, Valentine.