When I miss class for one day, I know it. When I miss class for two days, my teacher knows it. When I miss class for three days, the audience knows it.

You live as long as you dance.

For me, purity of movement wasn't enough. I needed expression, more intensity, more mind.

What is art? It is not just nature, it is nurtured nature. It is intelligence applied to what physical ability you have.

Technique is what you fall back on when you run out of inspiration.

A pas de deux is a dialogue of love. How can there be conversation if one partner is dumb?

The main thing is dancing, and before it withers away from my body, I will keep dancing till the last moment, the last drop.

I approach dancing from a different angle than those who begin dancing at 8 or 9. Those who have studied from the beginning never question anything.

We danced with one body, one soul... For me, Margot is my family. She is all I have, only her.

There was simply from this quite early age the awareness that the only thing I wanted was to dance.

As long as my ballets are danced, I will live.

If you got a dream, you are good to go. The only extra luggage you will need is self-belief and perseverance.

I cried when I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. And then I laughed REALLY hard.

The sinner will not confess, nor will the priest receive his confession, if the veil of secrecy is removed.

People have given me classified information, but always with the disclaimer 'This can never end up in a book.' And it never does.

Remember that just the moment you say, "I give up," someone else seeing the same situation is saying, "My, what a great opportunity."

It's not over until you win

No! Once the music plays, it creates me. The instruments move me, through me, they control me. Sometimes I'm uncontrollable and it just happens - boom, boom, boom! - once it gets inside you.

When you forcefully suppress religious nationalism, you radicalize it.

The Tao has no place for pettiness, and nor has Virtue. Pettiness is dangerous to Virtue; pettiness is dangerous to the Tao. It is said, rectify yourself and be done.