If you only do what you know and do it very, very well, chances are that you won't fail. You'll just stagnate, and your work will get less and less interesting, and that's failure by erosion
Interpretation
Sticking to what you know can lead to stagnation rather than growth.
Twyla Tharp's quote emphasizes the importance of stepping outside one's comfort zone. While excelling at what you already know can lead to a sense of security, it may ultimately result in a lack of innovation and engagement, creating a slow decline in the quality of your work, which she describes as failure by erosion.
In practice
A motivational speaker might use this quote to encourage a room full of professionals to pursue new skills.
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.
I am always interested in why young people become writers, and from talking with many I have concluded that most do not want to be writers working eight and ten hours a day and accomplishing little; they want to have been writers, garnering the rewards of having completed a best-seller. They aspire to the rewards of writing but not to the travail.
She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.
My parents taught me a long time ago that you win in life with people, and that's important, because if you hang with winners, you stand a great chance of being a winner.
I believe that a lot of our striving after the symbols and levers of success is due to a basic insecurity, a need to prove ourselves. That done, grown up at last, we are free to stop pretending.
When I look at my situation, yes, there were a lot of things... small school, didn't play much... but I knew that when I played, I won. And I also played in more of a pro system, so I understood the game of football. That helped me translate when I finally did get my opportunity.
The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?
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