Alvin Ailey

Everything in dancing is style, allusion, the essence of many thoughts and feelings. The abstraction of many moments.

— Alvin Ailey

One of the worst things about racism is what it does to young people.

— Alvin Ailey

If you live in the elite world of dance, you find yourself in a world rife with racism. Let's face it.

— Alvin Ailey

I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important…

— Alvin Ailey

I always want to have more dancers in my company.

— Alvin Ailey

We talk too much of black art when we should be talking about art, just art. Black composers must be free to…

— Alvin Ailey

One of the processes of your life is to constantly break down that inferiority, to constantly reaffirm that I Am Somebody.

— Alvin Ailey

My dancers must be able to do anything, and I don't care if they are black or white or purple or green.…

— Alvin Ailey

Its roots are in American Negro culture, which is part of the whole country's heritage, but the dance speaks to everyone... Otherwise,…

— Alvin Ailey

I wanted to explore black culture, and I wanted that culture to be a revelation.

— Alvin Ailey

No matter what you write or choreograph, you feel it is not enough.

— Alvin Ailey

The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it's with you all the time.

— Alvin Ailey

Money is a never-ending problem.

— Alvin Ailey

It will take very sophisticated marketing to achieve our aim of bringing more black people into the theater.

— Alvin Ailey

We still spend more time chasing funds than we do in the studio in creative work.

— Alvin Ailey

I'm attracted to long-legged girls with long arms and a little head.

— Alvin Ailey

I'm interested in putting something on stage that will have a very wide appeal without being condescending; that will reach an audience…

— Alvin Ailey

Racism tears down your insides so that no matter what you achieve, you're not quite up to snuff.

— Alvin Ailey

From his roots as a slave, the American Negro - sometimes sorrowing, sometimes jubilant but always hopeful - has touched, illuminated, and…

— Alvin Ailey

I always want more.

— Alvin Ailey

Dance is for everybody. I believe that the dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to…

— Alvin Ailey

My feelings about myself have been terrible.

— Alvin Ailey

DeFrantz's study...is not the first book about the protean Ailey, who was born in hardscrabble Texas in 1931 and died in 1989…

— Alvin Ailey

But the dance speaks to everyone. Otherwise it wouldn't work.

— Alvin Ailey

Sometimes you feel bad about yourself when there's no reason to.

— Alvin Ailey