At the root of all the varied manifestations of dancing, lies the common impulse to resort to movement to externalize emotional states which we cannot extemalize by rational means.

Art is a staple of mankind... So urgent, so utterly linked with the pulse of feeling that it becomes the singular sign of life when every other aspect of civilization fails.

The nobility danced for the sake of social grace, to exhibit their finery...peasants danced to make themselves happy, to escape the routine of their life, and to meet their future wives and husbands.

Art doesn't want to be familiar. It wants to astonish us. Or, in some cases, to enrage us. It wants to move us. To touch us. Not accommodate us, make us comfortable.

Among the language of the American Indians, there is no word for 'art'... For Indians, everything is art... therefore needs no name.

We've reached a point where we are not a very empathetic people, and art without empathy is art without an audience. My basic viewpoint is that without art we're alone.

Dance has been transformed from an involuntary motor discharge, a ceremonial rite, into a work of art, conscious of, intended for, observation.

For Indians, images are a means of celebrating mystery and not a manner of explaining it

The story of dance in the Western world is as much an alternative vision of the events of history as is the folk history told for generations by primal people.

In the New Hebrides, any dancer making a mistake was assaulted, wounded, and possibly killed by bowmen posted to keep careful watch for inaccuracies in rituals.

Our mind is our soul and we do not have any other soul. The concept of soul has been invented by ourselves to ease our fear of death.

Silence is victory and patience is glory.Let silence speak our identityand let patience keep our dignity.

There are two kinds of marriages, Benny — where the husband quotes the wife, or where the wife quotes the husband.

Most of us are lucky not to be Kings and Heroes, because we do not have to make the choices that Kings and Heroes have to make.

I'm very happy - if I can do even a little bit of work to get the short story out more, I'm thrilled.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

There's some of Romeo's romance in me... I romanticise a lot of things in my mind.

Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution?

I don't know whether schooling would have helped me get farther along in music at this time. I doubt it would have.

I am sad, like the hot dust on the streets And the music of fresh fallen leaves Caught in a sliding summer breeze.