To survive, you've got to keep wheedling your way. You can't just sit there and fight against odds when it's not going to work. You have to turn a corner, dig a hole, go through a tunnel - and find a way to keep moving.
Interpretation
Persistence and adaptability are essential for overcoming challenges.
In this quote, Twyla Tharp emphasizes the necessity of resilience in the face of adversity. Instead of resisting circumstances that may seem insurmountable, individuals must learn to navigate through difficulties with creativity and determination, adjusting their paths as needed to keep progressing towards their goals.
In practice
In a motivational speech about facing life's challenges.
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.
Black man, you are on your own.
To be a spiritual warrior means to develop a special kind of courage, one that is innately intelligent, gentle, and fearless. Spiritual warriors can still be frightened, but even so they are courageous enough to taste suffering, to relate clearly to their fundamental fear, and to draw out without evasion the lessons from difficulties.
It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.
I was in my thirteenth year when I heard a voice from God to help me govern my conduct. And the first time I was very much afraid.
I am an opponent of war and of war preparations and an opponent of universal military training and conscription; but entirely apart from that issue, I hold that segregation in any part of the body politic is an act of slavery and an act of war.
I still lie awake at night thinking about everything that could have been, that wasn't done to stop 9/11. To the 9/11 families, I said, you deserve better from your entire government. All of us.
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