Martha Graham Quotes

Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature.

Nothing is more revealing than movement.

I think the main thing was that the character couldn't speak in regular language, so he had to be mimed.

I talk with my hands. Some people don't like that. That's who I am.

I literally can't talk without moving hands.

How talented was death. How many expressions and manipulations of hand, face, body, no two alike.

There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands.

If our planet has seen some eighty billion people it is difficult to suppose hat every individual has had his or her own repertory of gestures. Arithmetically, it is simply impossible. Without the slightest doubt, there are far fewer gestures in the world than there are individuals. That finding leads us to a shocking conclusion: a gesture is more individual than an individual. We could put it in the form of an aphorism: many people, few gestures.

..he made me understand something very important. Whether because I am a Latin, or because I am a neurotic, I have a need of gestures. I am myself expressive, demonstrative; every feeling I have takes on expression: words, gestures, signs, letters, articulateness or action. I need this in others.

Body language is so important, as is composition. You can not say something, and then the body reacts, and it says a lot of things dialogue can also say.

The things one can express with the hand, with the head, with the shoulders!... How many useless and encumbering words then disappear! What economy!

I'm big on facial expressions, and I'm big on mannerisms, which I find to be hilarious.

Don't write anything you can phone. Don't phone anything you can talk. Don't talk anything you can whisper. Don't whisper anything you can smile. Don't smile anything you can nod. Don't nod anything you can wink.

No one is a plain white room. I hate going into a home that is done to the nines but has nothing do with the homeowner - no knickknacks, no art that has anything to say about the person who lives there.

When I see people on the street, I look at how they walk. It's like a signature, a fingerprint.

The voice is a second face.

People are funny in the way that they choose to express themselves.

The body is a universal language. Because if you spoke French, and I speak English, but I move like this or do certain movements, I can still make you smile and laugh.

Hence it is from the representation of things spoken by means of posture and gesture that the whole of the art of dance has been elaborated.

In most instances, the driving force behind the action is the mood, the personality, the attitude of the character - or all three. Therefore, the mind is the pilot. We think of things before the body does them.

I'm fascinated with psychology, and with why a person walks the way they walk or why they walk into a room the way they do or why we are the way we are, and it's not exclusive to the psychology of a character.

Waste no words on a man who dislikes you. Actions will impress him more.

With public speaking, practicing congruence is very helpful - allowing the words to be expressed with the face and body. It helps to think of simply "turning up the nonverbal volume."

We communicate all the time, even when we don't realize it. Be aware of body language

What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective.