Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Fate is like a train. When it flies past, you can choose if you want to get on it or not, to say no or say yes.
A lot of my career and my drive and my passion and my striving to be better and better was built on insecurity.
There's nothing like the force and challenge of a new ballet to galvanize everyone involved in bringing it to life.
What is art? It is not just nature, it is nurtured nature. It is intelligence applied to what physical ability you have.
I'm not the kind of person who is on television and in magazines every five minutes selling clothes or washing machines.
A vertical line is dignity. The horizontal line is peaceful. The obtuse angle is action. That's universal, it is primary.
In the world of classical ballet there are only a handful of story ballets, so getting a new one is cause for excitement.
Surround yourself with people who provide you with support and love and remember to give back as much as you can in return.
I am still on stage. If you read Press...you would believe that I should be gone. But here I am doing it and DOING IT WELL!
Being a ballerina, you don't ever want to show yourself less than perfect, ever. That's what your goal is: 24/7 perfection.
My life is proof that no matter what situation you're in, as long as you have a supportive family, you can achieve anything.
I'm still trying to change the way people see black dancers that we can become delicate dancers, that we can be a ballerina.
The main thing is dancing, and before it withers away from my body, I will keep dancing till the last moment, the last drop.
It's true I have a side of me that isn't very adult. I can get very emotional about things. I can become crazy, act the clown.
The action heroes were very cool as a kid. You would compare yourself with them - Jean-Claude Van Damme and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
When I was very young I was very shy but at the same time I was very open cause I was very curious so I wanted to try many things.
Between what I know I can do and want to achieve and what the audience expects, it's a lot of pressure, and it's always adding up.
Not many people understand that, but if you open yourself to listening - you don't even have to exercise - you get better with time.
We are constantly revealing ourselves to each other through our movement; learning from and teaching each other without even trying.
Whenever we dig down into the achievements of a creative artist, we invariably trace them to the beginning of all beginnings: labour.
Like everyone else, I want to go on dancing forever, but I know the day is going to come when I will have to be doing something else.
There's a picture of me as a little girl, and I'm waiting to go onstage, and I am biting the last bit of nail I have left on my finger.
I was dancing on Broadway for many years. Then everyone was either getting injured or retiring, and I was dancing with younger dancers.
I was afraid when I came to the Royal Ballet that it would be easy to have everyone walking all over me if I didn't stick up for myself.
'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Manon,' 'Giselle' - they are not stupid stories. They have fantastic characters. They have a big package of emotion.
I could have done a lot of things on TV, but I don't want to be recognised in the street. I'm not ready to feel that sort of embarrassment.
I was so comfortable with my ballet power, my dancer power, that to have a voice, the comfort with having a voice, is slower to come to me.
I think the only regret I have is not to have opened my eyes sooner to aspects of life like the relationship of man with nature and animals.
There are things I cannot do, costumes I cannot wear. When I have taken stands on things, it is because I have thought carefully about them.
I loved being at the Royal Ballet. Those choreographers, MacMillan and Ashton, they knew how to translate complicated life into choreography.
As a child, I was afraid of everything. My parents were shy, the kind of people for whom it is an ordeal to go and buy some bread or whatever.
I am only interested in being famous for my dancing. For me, the concept of the sacred monster is only about the stage - it is not about image.
I think the leotard for me became, after I retired, a sort of a symbol of the confines of still fitting into the ballet world in mind and body.
A performance is like a boat. You really want it to arrive at port. So when something goes wrong and it doesn't get there, that touches me a lot.
Most producers who want you to dance are not looking at the long term. They see their evenings, the box office, whom they have to repay, whatever.
Dancers are trained to be disciplined to do what they are told, but I knew that time goes by, and I didn't want to make the mistakes of the others.
I approach dancing from a different angle than those who begin dancing at 8 or 9. Those who have studied from the beginning never question anything.
The first time I took a plane to dance in front of an audience outside France was when I was in the Paris Opera Ballet School, and we flew to Japan.
Talent will only take you so far, and it is your ability to feel the music and explore a movement that will bring you the greatest pleasure in dance.
My mother really pushed me when I was young. I didn't want to go to dance classes, but for some reason, when I was there, I didn't want to come back.
I knew I wanted to be a ballet dancer, but what kind, I wasn't sure. My two dream companies had been New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater.
When I miss class for one day, I know it. When I miss class for two days, my teacher knows it. When I miss class for three days, the audience knows it.
A drop of water can't stop a fire alone. But a drop of water, plus another one, plus another one, then you have the rain, and the rain can stop the fire.
I have a strong sense of injustice and not admitting things just because that is the way someone says it should be. I need to understand. I need to agree.
Dancers, you know, they have pain everywhere: ankles in the morning, or back or neck or ribs or knees or the muscles. You are never free of pain, you know.
I am a bit of a boss, even when it's about the composting. This goes here! This goes there! Don't do that! Maybe for the sake of others, I should let go a bit.
I would have loved to work with Cranko. I love stories. Even though I like a lot of style - Forsythe, Maliphant - I have this childish side that likes stories.
I really miss dancing all day long. But something I really love is not dancing all day long. I love that I can't rely on dancing all day long to stay creative.
I always looked at the process and the career of being a ballerina as sacred. It's a true gift to have this talent and perform these masterworks; it's sublime.
I'm not a social animal, and I had a reputation that came before me of being very difficult, of screaming at everybody, so people tended to keep their distance.