“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.”

The body is a sacred garment. It’s your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor.

I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man–the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be.

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.

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.

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.

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.