Strive for perfection. Nobody’s going to be perfect on this earth. But strive for perfection.

Dancing is bigger than the physical body. Think bigger than that. When you extend your arm, it doesn’t stop at the end of your fingers, because you’re dancing bigger than that. You’re dancing spirit.

I could say now at 66, yeah, I was a fabulous dancer. I was really terrific, you know. But I was always present. I was present. I was supposed to be where I was supposed...

Concert dance is the hardest kind of dance. We tour constantly, around the world, year in and year out. It just doesn’t work for everybody. It’s the lifestyle, it’s the stamina, it’s the love, it’s...

You have to dance unencumbered. There’s no other way to move. The idea of dance is freedom. It is not exclusiveness, it’s inclusiveness.

I believe God has a path for me. He’s always had a path for me, and I’ve always been in the right place at the right time – not because of my efforts, but because...

My wonderful editor, Jackie Onassis, asked me to write a book that I wanted to write. I said, ‘Look, it’s not going to be scandalized. I’m not going to talk about anybody like a dog....

Dancers use their bodies in extraordinary ways, so we are chronically pre-arthritic, because of how we use our muscles and our bones.

As long as there are dancers around who love to dance, there will be an Alvin Ailey American Dance Company. We miss him so much, but he’s alive as soon as you see a dancer...

I want to know who you are as a person, and then I want you to develop as a whole human being.

Since babyhood, I’ve always evolved from one thing to another. My mother gave me ballet lessons at 6 as part of her enthusiasm for the arts and for life. We went to museums, to the...

I believe in being prepared. I’m going to say that. Pray, prepare, proceed.

At 10, I could walk down the street and see over everybody’s head. I don’t remember being little or having to look up at people. I think I was born 5 feet 10. It’s not...

I don’t think of myself as a leader. I am, but I don’t think of myself that way. I’m not trying to belittle what I do, but I think of myself as a dancer first....

The way Alvin Ailey has transformed modern dance and dance in general is the fact of variety. It’s a cornucopia of ways to move. There are choreographers in the company as – as diverse, as...

I haven’t had a family, but I don’t think of that as a sacrifice: my dancers are my family.

I tell young people that people aren’t just going to flock to you as your mentors. You have to seek them out. It could be your next-door neighbor; it could be somebody upstairs from you,...

It’s called the Ailey American Dance Theatre, not the Alvin Ailey African-American Dance Theatre. One thing also that Alvin wanted people to recognize, he had to wake up black every day. That’s not an issue....

You wake up white, and you think about certain things every day. You wake up black, and you think about certain things. You wake up Chinese, and you think certain things – but those things...

I went to an audition for a Harry Belafonte Roaring Twenties special for choreographer Donald McKayle, but I failed.

My idea for the Jamison Project was rather like a pickup company. The idea was to give the dancers a taste of the menu. Today, dancers need to try as many companies as possible without...

People don’t remember me for how high my legs went, even though they went up very high, and how many pirouettes I did. They don’t remember me for that. They remember me and any other...

If you look at a dancer in silence, his or her body will be the music. If you turn the music on, that body will become an extension of what you’re hearing.

I’m very smart when it comes to choosing dancers and trying to show the world that there’s a whole lot of dancing going on.

One thing I cannot stand is when people say, ‘Hi, how are you?’ and they don’t wait to hear how I am. They’re just going through the motions. I say to people: ‘Keep it human....

I’ve been in a competitive situation almost all my life. I’ve been having a competition with myself and trying to be the best I could be.

You don’t enter a dance studio and say “I can’t do that.” If you do, then why are you in the studio in the first place?

I’ve danced all over the world, and people are people. We cannot cut off from each other in life. In order to lead, you can’t do that.

We can go on talking about racism and who treated whom badly, but what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wallow in that or are you going to create your...

The word ‘suffering’ is not in my vocabulary.

The first time I started choreographing was in the dark, in my living room, with the lights completely out, to some popular music on the radio. I put the radio on full blast and I...

I’ve had a really charmed life, you know. Things always come to me – they just do.

We’re dancing from here, from inside, not from outside. You could look at anybody throwing their leg and kick their leg up and a million pirouettes and do all kinds of tricks and stuff like...

Dance is not endangered – it will always find a way to express itself.

If people all over the world, year after year, request that you do ‘Revelations,’ you do ‘Revelations.’

The world is full of ways for people to dance. Concert dance doesn’t get its due.

I was a protege; by the age of 10, I was studying with ballet choreographer Anthony Tudor in a class of adults.

Maybe it’s a generational thing, but I never wanted to be the best black dancer in the world. I just wanted to be the best.

Learn the craft of knowing how to open your heart and to turn on your creativity. There’s a light inside of you.

As a dancer, you really try to stay true to whatever the choreographer/artistic director is giving you. So, now the shoe is on the other foot and I have to trust everyone else – I...

People come to see beauty, and I dance to give it to them.