Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.

— Twyla Tharp

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

— Twyla Tharp

Creativity is an act of defiance.

— Twyla Tharp

Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them. What we're talking about here is metaphor. Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we are experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It's not only how we express what we remember, it's how we interpret it - for ourselves and others.

— Twyla Tharp

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.

— Twyla Tharp

Here’s 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’s your one opportunity in life to be completely free, with no responsibilities and no consequences. You don’t have to be good or even interesting. It’s 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.

— Twyla Tharp

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.

— Twyla Tharp

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.

— Twyla Tharp

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

— Twyla Tharp

In dreams, anything can be anything, and everybody can do. We can fly, we can turn upside down, we can transform into anything.

— Twyla Tharp