“I don’t think in art there is ever a precedent; each moment is a new one and terrifying and threatening and bursting with hope.”

You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels – a leaf feels, a storm feels – what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it’s a cultivated speech.

Stand up! Keep your backs straight! Remember that this is where the wings grow.

What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.

I’d rather an audience like me than dislike me, but I’d rather they disliked me than be apathetic, because that is the kiss of death.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.

You don’t pick dance. Dance picks you.

The unique must be fulfilled.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.

Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.

Discipline is liberation.

People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life.

Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.

We are all of us, unique – each a unique pattern of creativity and if we do not fulfill it, it is lost for all time.

Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.

What makes a great dancer is not technique. What makes a great dancer is passion.

The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.

Art for me…is a negation of society, an affirmation of the individual, outside of all the rules and all the demands of society.

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

It is my art. I am better at it than I ever was. And I will do it as long as I can. When you reach a certain age you can slough off what is unnecessary and concentrate on what is. And why not?

Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.

If knowing the truth is sufficient for you, then practice the art of philosophy. If only living the truth will suffice, then practice the art of love through your mind, your emotions, and your body.

When I was a kid, I was told rock n’ roll wasn’t music. It wasn’t art. Queen was my proof, my evidence, that these people were wrong – and they meant everything to me.

You stand your ground and you perform your art. That’s what the artist does. The artist is about perfection.

Techniques vary, art stays the same; it is a transposition of nature at once forceful and sensitive.