Twyla Tharp

Here__ how I learned to improvise: I played some music in the studio and I started to move. It sounds obvious, but I wonder how many people, whatever their medium, appreciate the gift of improvisation. It__ your one opportunity in life to be completely free, with no responsibilities and no consequences. You don__ have to be good or even interesting. It__ you alone, with no one watching or judging. If anything comes of it, you decide whether the world gets to see it. In essence, you are giving yourself permission to daydream during working hours.

You don__ get lucky without preparation, and there__ no sense in being prepared if you__e not open to the possibility of a glorious accident.

Reading is your first line of defense against an empty head.

If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.

In every situation, at the beginning or end of the workday, you have a choice. You can look back or you can look forward. My advice: look forward. Always think about the next day. Don't go into the studio thinking, 'Hmmm, let's see what I was doing yesterday?' It takes more energy to twist yourself around and look back that it does to face forward.

Creativity is an act of defiance.

'The Creative Habit' is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. 'The Collaborative Habit' is obviously about surviving with other people.

Everyone has a talent. It's simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck.

There's the tradition of the 19th-century ballets, and the 20th century has had a difficult time with that tradition. And it's had a difficult time with many components of the Romantic imagination because of modernism.

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.

What we want from modern dance is courage and audacity.

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.

I feel I can handle the architecture of dance as well as anybody.

I always tell students that you've got to be practical. You do not need a dream. You need a purpose, something you can wake up to in the morning when the dream is dissipated.

People often say to me, 'I don't know anything about dance.' I say, 'Stop. You got up this morning, and you're walking. You are an expert.'

This is the strange thing: Dancers don't age.

To survive, you've got to keep wheedling your way. You can't just sit there and fight against odds when it's not going to work. You have to turn a corner, dig a hole, go through a tunnel - and find a way to keep moving.

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.