Martha Graham Quotes

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

Don't try to write what other people are writing - write what is true to you.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.

Probably the No. 1 most important thing in my music is not to sound like anyone else. It is hard in this day and age.

The one good thing about dance is that if you are truly yourself, then it's all good.

Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared.

Do not imitate one another's style. If you do, so far as your art is concerned you will be called a grandson, rather than the son of Nature.

There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me.

Do the stuff that only you can do. The urge, starting out, is to copy. And that's not a bad thing. Most of us only find our own voices after we've sounded like a lot of other people. But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right.

No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.

He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.

The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

Sometimes, there's a preconceived notion of how a scene or how a work should be delivered. And I see young performers sometimes try and deliver that, and it's not really true to their voice or who they are.

I wanted each of my books to be very different from the others, each to be special and uncategorizable, and I knew I could only do that a few times before I was in danger of repeating myself.

The best advice I've received is to be yourself. The best artists do that.

I think the key to great art and great artists is to just fully be yourself and not be scared of that, and be the extremes of your personality. Show the extremes of your personality and embrace the imperfections. Embrace the things about yourself that you might not like.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

No age is compelled to take its beauty from preceding epochs.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

I learned early in my writing career that if I try to tailor a song for someone else, I'm usually off base. They're usually looking for something from you with your character.

One should never write down or up to people, but out of yourself.

I'm into emulation, not imitation.

As long as you're true to you, you believe it and you make others believe it, then what you're doing is just art. If you give everybody a blank canvas and some paint, not everybody's picture is going to be exactly the same, but it's still art. I just do what I do.

I'd hate it if everyone in the world liked me, my music and what I wore. It'd make it boring, and I wouldn't have anything to work towards. It's not to everyone's taste, but I can only be me.