"When people start dancing, they dance like they don't know they are doing it"
About this Quote
Khan came out of qawwali, a tradition built to push listeners past everyday restraint into something closer to surrender. In that context, the quote reads like a quiet manifesto: the best dance is unselfed. Not performative, not strategic, not designed for approval. It's the opposite of the modern camera-ready groove, where movement is pre-edited for an audience. Here, dancing is involuntary honesty. The body confesses what the mouth won't.
The subtext is also a gentle rebuke to the idea that control is the highest human state. Khan suggests that joy, devotion, release - whatever you want to call the pulse that makes people move - doesn't arrive by planning. It arrives by being overtaken. That's why the sentence is structured the way it is: not "they decide to dance", but "people start dancing", as if a current has grabbed them. In one compact observation, he turns dance into evidence: under the right music, even the most guarded person reveals a self they didn't know they were carrying.
Quote Details
| Topic | Live in the Moment |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Khan, Nusrat F. A. (2026, January 15). When people start dancing, they dance like they don't know they are doing it. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-people-start-dancing-they-dance-like-they-170407/
Chicago Style
Khan, Nusrat F. A. "When people start dancing, they dance like they don't know they are doing it." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-people-start-dancing-they-dance-like-they-170407/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"When people start dancing, they dance like they don't know they are doing it." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-people-start-dancing-they-dance-like-they-170407/. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026.








