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, 'Hamm, 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.

— Twyla Tharp

I think a sense of humor will help get a girl out of a dark place.

— Twyla Tharp

Life is about moving, it’s about change. And when things stop doing that they’re dead.

— Twyla Tharp

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

— Twyla Tharp

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.'

— Twyla Tharp

Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them, and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won.

— Twyla Tharp

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

— Twyla Tharp

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.

— Twyla Tharp

'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.

— Twyla Tharp

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.

— Twyla Tharp