It is extremely arrogant and very foolish to think that you can ever outwit your audience.
Twyla Tharp

It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn't think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer.
Twyla Tharp

My mother was a dominant force in my life. She had a very specific idea about education, which was: you should know everything about everything. It was quite simple. There was no exclusivity, and there really was no judgment.
Twyla Tharp

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

The formal education that I received made little sense to me.
Twyla Tharp

The necessity to constantly turn in an excellent performance, to be absolutely wedded to this dedication and this ideal means that as a child you're going to pay for it personally.
Twyla Tharp

The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts.
Twyla Tharp

The rewards of dancing are very different from choreographing.
Twyla Tharp

There's this expression called postmodernism, which is kind of silly, and destroys a perfectly good word called modern, which now no longer means anything.
Twyla Tharp

With each piece I've completed I have worked to make it intact, and each of them has been an equal high. It's like children. A mother refuses to pick out one as a favorite, and I can't do any better with the dances.
Twyla Tharp