Twyla Tharp Quotes

All art is based on non-conformity.

I always knew I wanted to create. I used to sit in my room for hours drawing and making things. I once got into trouble for cutting up my mother's lampshades to make a dress. I was three.

I am a leader, so leaders always get heat. They're always going against the grain. Jimi Hendrix got heat; Bob Marley got heat; Miles Davis got heat. Every great artist got heat. Heat means you're doing something right.

You want to do something, you want to have the bravery to do something original. And there will always be people who are like, the classicists who are like, 'No, but it's got to have this.' In life, there are people like that attached to every single thing that there is. These are the same people that are like, still playing vinyl.

It is not necessary to be too avant-garde, because you risk not being understood.

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature

There are talented people along the way, although very few come to mind. They're not very daring. Part of the problem is that comedians don't want to overthrow anything. They want to join it.

I hate anything that seems like something that has been done.

There's not enough people being daring and different. There are a lot of followers in hip-hop.

I hate good taste. It's the worst thing that can happen to a creative person.

Conformism is so hot on the heels of the mass-produced avant-garde that the 'ins' and the 'outs' change places with the speed of mach 3.

Successful people are the ones who are breaking the rules.

If you wish to obtain a great name or to found an establishment, be completely mad; but be sure that your madness corresponds with the turn and temper of your age.

I think the avant-garde often hides itself in the highly incomprehensible because they are frustrated that the real world is so boring.

Traditionalists often study what is taught, not what there is to create.

People relate to the spirit of the band, which is to live your way and succeed on your own terms. There's no hypocrisy in being successful and still railing against conformity.

My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.

My motto is more, 'If you want to find something new, look for something new!' There is a certain amount of risk in this attitude, as even the slightest failure tends to be resounding, but you are so happy when you succeed that it is worth taking the risk.

The Pre-Raphaelites, while very bothered by what the establishment thought of them, also utterly rebelled against it. In everything - social, sexual, emotional - they were out on a limb, pushing the boundaries.

There is a place for visionaries and the avant-garde in this world, but not at 9 o'clock on a network.

Creative experimentation propels our culture forward. That our stories of innovation tend to glorify the breakthroughs and edit out all the experimental mistakes doesn't mean that mistakes play a trivial role. As any artist or scientist knows, without some protected, even sacred space for mistakes, innovation would cease.

Mainstream to me equals boring, so I don't want to be doing that.

I have a certain temperament, a disposition that I think lends itself to not playing outside the lines that much. But I do test the boundaries, certainly, and break one or two of my own. Some people are mystified by it, but not me.

What makes bebop legitimate is the fact that when it was done, it was illegitimate.

Free yourself from the rigid conduct of tradition and open yourself to the new forms of probability.