This collection holds 66 astaire quotes, drawn from writers, leaders, artists and thinkers across the QuoteForever archive. The most quoted voices here are Matthew Bourne, Debbie Reynolds and Burt Reynolds.

They are ordered so that each author has a say before anyone repeats, which means the first page gives you the range of the topic rather than one writer's back catalogue.

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Fred Astaire is my real idol.

Fred Astaire was my dream dancer.

I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act.

I'm really influenced by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

From Fred Astaire I learned discipline and hard work.

The Fred Astaire movies made a huge impression on me.

When Fred Astaire danced, everything in this world was perfect.

My father danced a lot. He was called 'the French Fred Astaire.'

I want to do with skates what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing.

My mom always had me and my brother watching old Fred Astaire movies.

Did any artist ever bring more pure joy to more people than Fred Astaire?

I studied dancing for 13 years. And loved to dance. Always wanted to dance with Fred Astaire.

No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.

Fred Astaire was a more formal, trained dancer who loved waltzing and only danced with the girls.

My uncle, who was a little more flamboyant, always said the guy who dressed the best was Fred Astaire.

I dug up my dad's old Fred Astaire tapes, and now I find him super-inspiring. He's, like, one of the best dancers.

She was just the most wonderful mother. She loved working with Fred Astaire - she would talk about working with him.

When Ginger Rogers danced with Astaire, it was the only time in the movies when you looked at the man, not the woman.

I've always had an innate ability to dance, but I'm not as spiffy as those cinema legends like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.

I spent an entire evening seated between Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, being charmed from either side. It was pure Hollywood magic.

Whether it's Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire or 'West Side Story,' see it on the big screen. That's the way we should appreciate it.

I was spawned by some pretty good people in this business - Mr. Astaire, Mr. Tracy. They stopped and took their time to talk to people.

Fred Astaire never let you see him sweat, but he sweetened his deceptively casual virtuosity with just enough charm to make it irresistible.

I've worked with Jack Warner and Jimmy Stewart - and Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Johnny Depp twice. I've had dinners with Fred Astaire and Cary Grant.

There's an old Fred Astaire movie where the stage becomes bigger and deeper and more complex. Moments like that really did impact on me and influence me.

I wish I was born in that era: dancing with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, going to work at the studio dressed in beautiful pants, head scarves, and sunglasses.

I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said 'Yes, but it hurts now.' That's exactly it. I can still dance, too, but it hurts now!

As a dancer, obviously, we are all inspired by Michael Jackson, and I always looked up to Gene Kelly. He was a bigger version of Fred Astaire, and he was amazing as well.

Fred Astaire is my hero. I love him because he was willing to kill himself to make his art look effortless. And because he proved it's possible to be an artist and a good person.

I live in a wonderful world of make-believe. A world of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. A world of Winnie the Pooh and Edward Bear. Things like that. Wonderful things. Funny things.

Mr Fosse was obviously influenced by Brecht and Weill, as well as Bergman and Fellini, and you could see the influence of vaudeville and African American hoofing - and Fred Astaire, too.

When I was a kid, I loved Nicholas brothers films. It was like skateboarding. Even Gene Kelly: I always preferred him to Fred Astaire, just because he was more athletic, like skateboarding.

I grew up with the movies of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and Judy Garland - these are the kinds of shows and the kinds of numbers in shows that I dreamed of being in and doing when I was a kid.

No one around me was obsessed with Fred Astaire except for me. It just snowballed, really. I started with tap lessons. When I didn't have tap shoes, I taped nickels on the bottom of my penny loafers.

I love the old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies; they're so beautiful to look at. It's such a shame we don't make them anymore. Although, I don't know how you could make tap dancing current and topical.

When I am cast in a movie where I feel that the woman's part is more interesting, I usually start thinking about Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire. They seem to be the most clear actors when working with women.

When I was young, I ran to see Astaire and Rogers, Huston, Lubitsch - they were formative for me. I also read 'Flash Gordon' when I was 6, but if I were still reading it when I was 16, I'd have been an imbecile.

Over the years, myths were built up about my relationship with Fred Astaire. The general public thought he was a Svengali, who snapped his fingers for his little Trilby to obey; in their eyes, my career was his creation.

I did a dance with Fred Astaire in the movie 'Bandwagon.' I got to waltz just from left of camera to right of camera, and I'm taller than Fred Astaire. Fortunately, I was wearing a long skirt, so I waltzed with bended knees.

The thing is that my idols have always been the types of guys who could do anything: Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Sinatra, Dean Martin; and when you look up to people like that, you don't accept that you need to be compartmentalised.

I was asked to act when I couldn't act. I was asked to sing 'Funny Face' when I couldn't sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn't dance - and do all kinds of things I wasn't prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

Look at the greatest dressers in history - Philadelphia socialite and diplomat Angier Biddle Duke, Sir Anthony Eden, Fred Astaire, the Duke of Windsor, John F. Kennedy, and Gary Cooper - they all sport the well placed pocket adornment.

My mom was a huge fan of 'Dirty Dancing.' I couldn't quite get a break, and she was like, 'Patrick Swayze was a dancer!' And Fred Astaire. I started dancing, and it led me to acting. It helps with fighting or whatever choreography in general.

I loved old black and white movies, especially the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. I loved everything about them - the songs, the music, the romance and the spectacle. They were real class and I knew that I wanted to be in that world.

Astaire was ballroom, basically, and Gene Kelly had such athleticism - that's always what I responded to and what just blew my head open when I watched Gene Kelly's numbers. But, Fred Astaire was just so incredibly inventive and so, so smooth - so smooth.

As a little girl, I didn't dream of being a ballet dancer; I dreamt of being a movie star like Ginger Rogers and dancing with Fred Astaire. I used to watch the Sunday double-bills on TV and Iong to be part of what seemed a perfect Disneyland world. Astaire was a genius.

I think if I was like Fred Astaire out there or like break dance fighting and doing crazy splits and stuff like that I think people would be like, 'ehhhh, I'm just going to watch him,' but the fact that they're like, 'I can do that,' it's fun and I think they lose themselves.

Being young isn't about age, it's about being a free spirit. You can meet someone of 20 who's boring and old, or you can meet someone of 70 who's youthful and exciting. I met Fred Astaire when he was 72 and I was 21, and I fell in love with him. He certainly was a free spirit.

In America, at the beginning of talkies, they pulled Fred Astaire from the theaters and put him on the screen and had all of these great composers write songs for him. They call it the Great American Songbook; I call it the Fred Astaire Songbook because they were written for him.

I make up cassettes all the time - to take on the road with me - a song from this album, a song from that album. That's the way I listen to music; it's like one of those K Tel things: it's from all over. I listen to Fred Astaire, I listen to African folk music, I listen to Talking Heads.

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