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" Dance is just like film in that it allows for thoughts in movement. "

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" I find the aesthetics of the 20th century hopelessly barren. "

" I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action. "

" There's this expression called postmodernism, which is kind of silly, and destroys a perfectly good word called modern, which now no longer means anything. "

" There's the tradition of the 19th-century ballets, and the 20th century has had a difficult time with that tradition. And it's had a difficult time with many components of the Romantic imagination because of modernism. "

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

" Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it's for engineers trying to solve a problem; it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way. "

" I started formal piano training when I was 4. From there I had little violas, and I had dancing lessons of every sort and description, and painting lessons. I had German. And shorthand. "

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

" I look for dancers who have all the technique in the world. But they must be dancers who are open-minded, who are willing to forget that they know anything. They also have to be gorgeous; they must have a clear image of themselves and strong personalities. "

" The ballet needs to tell its own story in such a way it can be received without having to be translated into language. "

" My dancers expect me to deliver because my choreography represents their livelihood. "

" If I didn't believe in myself as a dancer, I wouldn't choreograph. "

" When I started making dances in the '60s, narrative dance was sort of off the radar screen. What was important at the time in the avant-garde was minimalism. "

" Balzac loved courtesans. They were independent women, and in the 19th century, that was a breed that was just evolving. "

" It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn't think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer. "

" Walt Disney was a master of the human psychology. His sense of timing, sense of speed. In a sense, those cartoons are like Rorschach tests. "

" If you're speaking of love, you really must include the element of uncertainty - and perhaps it's best approached as the art of constant maintenance. "

" The ultimate point of a piece for me is that it drives the next one. Does it open new doors? That's the success of a piece. "

" I find that dancers are only well trained in ballet these days. "

" At the ballet classes I took when I first came to New York, I would see great dancers like Cynthia Gregory and Lupe Serrano. I would look at them and study what they could do, and what I couldn't do. And then I'd think maybe they should try what I could do. "

" Everything present is included in the past somewhere; nobody's present pops out of nowhere. "

" It's very important to work myself physically as hard as I can. "

" I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do. "

" A commission is an invitation to fall in love. "

" Modern dancers should be doing things no one else is doing, and it should come from the gut. "

" There is obviously a power and a truth in action that doesn't lie, which words easily can do. "

" I am fairly concise when I work and I work quickly because I think work is done better in a high gear than done our in a gear when everyone's exhausted. Get focused, do it! "

" When I was a kid, toe dancing and toe shoes had a meaning in our culture as a serious kind of art. "

" A dancer's life is all about repetition. "

" Nothing is more terrifying to me, really, than the status quo. I'll make mistakes before I keep doing something the same way. "