There is pain and sacrifice in everyone's world. That's why, when I was dancing, I had no pain.

I'm thought of as a cool, unemotional dancer, but inside I'm not.

I loved tests because it was another form of competing, a healthy competition.

You're never more of an individual than when you're a happy team player.

I loved the stage not because it provided an escape from myself or my humdrum life but because when the curtain went up I could be whoever I wanted to be, and that was true freedom - to be myself.

Once I started dancing, I was not the spoiled brat or the rebellious child that I was as a child.

The arts are the hospitals for our souls.

I set as my goal to be the best dancer I could be. Not the most famous, or the highest paid dancer, just the best I could be. Out of this discipline came great freedom and calm.

On the other hand, I think it is wonderful for everyone to take ballet classes, at any age. It gives you a discipline, it gives you a place to go. It gives you some control in your life.

As soon as I hear music, something in me starts to vibrate.

When you get on stage, you can be anything. You are removed from reality in a way, the real world.

Birthday is a glorious day.

Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, they rise, they break, and to that sea return.

I'll be the first to admit it, the life I'm leading is basically a joke. I should probably be cooler about it, but I can't fake it, you know?

How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!

It is the fear of middle-age in the young, of old-age in the middle-aged, which is the prime cause of infidelity, that infallible rejuvenator.

Drugs are marvelous--it's life that's evil. And sometimes the only way to face it is to get completely twisted.

Sit as little as possible. Give no credence to any thought that was not born outdoors while moving about freely.

Hollywood is ten million dollars worth of intricate and high ingenious machinery functioning elaborately to put skin on baloney.

Butcher boy, damn it, butcher boy.

Every time I ask for visa, they (USA) give me visa for five years. I have never had any problem in getting a visa to any nation.