Alvin Ailey Quotes

• Dance is for everybody. I believe that the dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people.

  Alvin Ailey

  Inspirational, Dance, Believe

  65 Copy quote

• To be who you are and become what you are capable of is the only goal worth living.

  Alvin Ailey

  Inspirational, Life, Being Yourself

  92 Copy quote

• Making dances is an act of progress; it is an act of growth, an act of music, an act of teaching, an act of celebration, an act of joy.

  Alvin Ailey

  Music, Dance, Teaching

  58 Copy quote

• One of the processes of your life is to constantly break down that inferiority, to constantly reaffirm that I Am Somebody.

  Alvin Ailey

  Inferiority, Life Is, Breaking Down

  90 Copy quote

• I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important is the quality of our work.

  Alvin Ailey

  Color, Important, Trying

  26 Copy quote

• My dancers must be able to do anything, and I don't care if they are black or white or purple or green. I want to help show my people how beautiful they are. I want to hold up the mirror to my audience that says this is the way people can be, this is how open people can be.

  Alvin Ailey

  Beautiful, Dance, Mirrors

  40 Copy quote

• The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it's with you all the time.

  Alvin Ailey

  Dance, Time, Creative

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  45 Copy quote

• I wanted to explore black culture, and I wanted that culture to be a revelation.

  Alvin Ailey

  Black, Culture, Revelations

  "Ailey's Troupe Explores Its Roots". Interview with Jennifer Dunning, www.nytimes.com. November 27, 1983.

  12 Copy quote

• But the dance speaks to everyone. Otherwise it wouldn't work.

  Alvin Ailey

  Speak

  "Alvin Ailey, a Leading Figure In Modern Dance, Dies at 58" by Jennifer Dunning, www.nytimes.com. December 2, 1989.

  19 Copy quote

• Everything in dancing is style, allusion, the essence of many thoughts and feelings. The abstraction of many moments.

  Alvin Ailey

  Essence, Dancing, Feelings

  16 Copy quote

• One of the worst things about racism is what it does to young people.

  Alvin Ailey

  Racism, People, Doe

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes you feel bad about yourself when there's no reason to.

  Alvin Ailey

  Sometimes, Reason, About Yourself

  8 Copy quote

• Racism tears down your insides so that no matter what you achieve, you're not quite up to snuff.

  Alvin Ailey

  Racism, Tears, Racist

  61 Copy quote

• If you live in the elite world of dance, you find yourself in a world rife with racism. Let's face it.

  Alvin Ailey

  Racism, Finding Yourself, Racist

  9 Copy quote

• Money is a never-ending problem.

  Alvin Ailey

  Problem, Never Ending

  10 Copy quote

• Choreography is mentally draining, but there's a pleasure in getting into the studio with the dancers and the music.

  Alvin Ailey

  Dance, Pleasure, Choreography

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  13 Copy quote

• I'm attracted to long-legged girls with long arms and a little head.

  Alvin Ailey

  Girl, Dance, Long

  13 Copy quote

• We still spend more time chasing funds than we do in the studio in creative work.

  Alvin Ailey

  Time, Creative, Chasing

  9 Copy quote

• No matter what you write or choreograph, you feel it is not enough.

  Alvin Ailey

  Dance, Writing, Matter

  8 Copy quote

• Lena Horne is the sweetest and most adorable woman in the world.

  Alvin Ailey

  Adorable, World, Sweetest

  7 Copy quote

• My lasting impression of Truman Capote is that he was a terribly gentle, terribly sensitive, and terribly sad man.

  Alvin Ailey

  Men, Lasting Impressions, Truman

  24 Copy quote

• It will take very sophisticated marketing to achieve our aim of bringing more black people into the theater.

  Alvin Ailey

  People, Black, Marketing

  7 Copy quote

• I always want to have more dancers in my company.

  Alvin Ailey

  Dance, Dancer, Want

  7 Copy quote

• DeFrantz's study...is not the first book about the protean Ailey, who was born in hardscrabble Texas in 1931 and died in 1989 after creating close to 80 works. But it is perhaps the most comprehensive, combining biography, criticism, the analysis of dance criticism, and a sort of corporate history, siting the now firmly established Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in the international cultural landscape.

  Alvin Ailey

  Book, Texas, Creating

  7 Copy quote

• My feelings about myself have been terrible.

  Alvin Ailey

  Feelings, Terrible, Has Beens

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  7 Copy quote

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