I never studied with Balanchine, but his work was very important to me.

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.

I have not wanted to intimidate audiences. I have not wanted my dancing to be an elitist form. That doesn't mean I haven't wanted it to be excellent.

Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.

Our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable.

No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.

If you only do what you know and do it very, very well, chances are that you won't fail. You'll just stagnate, and your work will get less and less interesting, and that's failure by erosion

You don't get into the mood to create – it's discipline.

Life is about moving, it’s about change. And when things stop doing that they’re dead.

More often than not I've found, a rut is a consequence of sticking to tried and tested methods that don't take into account how you or the world has changed.

If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.

Definition is a choice.

What i literally cannot describe is the hollowness in my lungs when i am out of her presence. It is as if i were dying from the want of her.

Suspense is torture ... but delightful--or there'd be no gambling in the world.

You can’t help someone just by making a wish to do so, you have to take action.

You don't have to forget the past to start enjoying the present.

I've come close to death more times than Elizabeth Taylor has said 'I do.'

A dynamic struggle goes on within a person between what he or she consciously thinks on the one hand and, on the other, some insight, some perspective that is struggling to be born.

I wake up every morning singing The Star-Spangled Banner.

It tires me to talk to rich men. You expect a man of millions, the head of a great industry, to be a man worthhearing; but as a rule they don't know anything outside their own business.

The meaning of my life is to help others find meaning in theirs.