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.
Interpretation
Having a purpose is more important than merely dreaming; it provides motivation for daily life.
Twyla Tharp emphasizes the importance of practicality over idealism in this quote. While dreams can be inspiring, they often fade away in the face of reality. What truly sustains us and gives our lives direction is a clear purpose—something we can focus on and strive towards every day, especially when the initial excitement of our dreams begins to fade.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a graduation ceremony to motivate students to find their purpose.
Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft.
When I talk to students - and I still think of myself more than anything as a kind of professor on leave - they say, 'Well, how do I get to do what you do?'... And I say, 'Well, you have to start out by being a failed piano major.' And my point to them is don't try to have a 10-year plan. Find the next thing that interests you and follow that.
Being incarcerated does not mean being devoid of the capacity to learn, grow, and think, and it's critical that prisons provide spaces where learning can be both cultivated and encouraged.
Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation. The content of that dialogue can and should vary in accordance with historical conditions and the level at which the oppressed perceive reality.
You'll learn more in a day talking to customers than a week of brainstorming, a month of watching competitors, or a year of market research.
Students of reading, writing and common arithmetick . . . Graecian [Greek], Roman, English and American history . . . should be rendered . . . worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens.
If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.
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