Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 'Paquita' has a patchy history, beginning in 1846, and a patchy plot. "

Robert Gottlieb

Related Quotes:

" Ballet Hispanico is a mixture of ethnic, ballet, social, jazz - you name it, it's doing it. The company has been going strong for more than 20 years, and you can see why: It may not be refined, but it's full of beans. "

Robert Gottlieb

" At a certain point, you have to face the fact that you've turned into an old fart. "

Robert Gottlieb

" The best thing you can say about Hubbard Street is that if you were a dancer, this is a company you'd fight to get into. "

Robert Gottlieb

" What guarantees - or at least semi-guarantees - good ballets is good choreographers, and they are thin on the ground. "

Robert Gottlieb

" There's no point pretending that all of Martha Graham's pieces are equally strong. "

Robert Gottlieb

" One of the odder byways of nonfiction is the dishy memoir by those who have served the great or the near-great. "

Robert Gottlieb

" It's often the case that the most strained moments in books are the very beginning and the very end - the getting in and the getting out. The ending, especially: it's awkward, as if the writer doesn't know when the book is over and nervously says it all again. "

Robert Gottlieb

" Charles Dickens left us fifteen novels, and in an ideal world, everyone would read all of them. "

Robert Gottlieb

" I was the only child, and I know my father had certain thoughts about me. He was a lawyer and extremely literary, but he would have been much happier if I had wanted to be a lawyer, a scientist, an engineer. But what I wanted to do was read. "

Robert Gottlieb

" Tolstoy may be right about happy and unhappy families, but in ballet, it works the opposite way: All good ballets are different from each other and all bad ones are alike, at least in one crucial respect - they're all empty. "

Robert Gottlieb

" The best seat in the house often depends on the ballet. For instance, much of the first act of 'The Nutcracker' is domestic and small scale, so it's great to sit up close. But the second act features elaborate scenery and choreography, which are better to observe from a distance. "

Robert Gottlieb

" Like all editors, I assume, I'm a reactor. "

Robert Gottlieb

" I can't remember how many years it's been since I last saw a David Parsons program or what I saw whenever it was, but that isn't surprising, since I can't really remember the first half of a David Parsons program while I'm watching the second half. "

Robert Gottlieb

" A steady diet of the higher truths might prove exhausting, but it's important that we acknowledge their validity and celebrate their survival. "

Robert Gottlieb

" Who would have thought that a tap-dancing penguin would outpoint James Bond at the box office? And deserve to? Not that there's anything wrong with 'Casino Royale.' But 'Happy Feet' - written and directed by George Miller - is a complete charmer, even if, in the way of most family fare, it can't resist straying into the Inspirational. "

Robert Gottlieb

" 'Porgy and Bess' has never been thought of as a dance show, and yet it's filled with dance. It uses dance to punctuate the action, or as background, or as atmosphere; even when it's front and center, it isn't crucial. "

Robert Gottlieb

" 'River of Light,' to a dense but powerful score commissioned from Charles Wuorinen and with ravishing lighting by Mark Stanley, has depth and resonance. "

Robert Gottlieb

" Melissa Barak, an ex-City Ballet dancer and sometime choreographer, has put together an unspeakably dopey and incompetent mess called 'Call Me Ben,' combining ultra-generic dance, terrible dialogue and disastrous storytelling, about the founding of Las Vegas by the gangster Bugsy Siegel, who insists, violently, on being addressed as 'Ben.' "

Robert Gottlieb

" I don't like writing - it's so difficult to say what you mean. It's much easier to edit other people's writing and help them say what they mean. "

Robert Gottlieb

" The mysteries and scandals of the Kremlin are nothing compared to the mysteries and scandals of the Bolshoi. "

Robert Gottlieb

" There are certain historical figures of such importance that we need to know everything about them, which is why books about Napoleon, Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, and the great religious founders continue to proliferate; these lives require constant reevaluation and interpretation. "

Robert Gottlieb

" The Kirov is a great ballet company because it has so many terrific dancers, but it doesn't always know what to do with them. "

Robert Gottlieb

" For Russians, to whom Pushkin's poem 'Eugene Onegin' is sacred text, the ballet's story and personae are as familiar and filled with meaning as, for instance, 'Romeo' and 'Hamlet' are for us. Russians know whole stretches of it by heart, the way we know Shakespeare and Italians know Dante. "

Robert Gottlieb

" The first movement ballerina should be a paradigm of strength and authority. "

Robert Gottlieb

" What makes a publishing house great? The easy answer is the consistency with which it produces books of value over a lengthy period of time. "

Robert Gottlieb

" In my view, the ebook world for both established and new authors is a terrific new and exciting format. It is a format that will bring forth many new writers to publishing. "

Robert Gottlieb

" Increasingly, editing means going to lunch. It means editing with a credit card, not with a pencil. "

Robert Gottlieb

" What really matters is that 'Black Swan' deploys and exaggerates all the cliches of earlier ballet movies, especially 'The Red Shoes,' another tale of a ballerina driven mad and suicidal. "

Robert Gottlieb

" Ballerinas are often divided into three categories: jumpers, turners and balancers. "

Robert Gottlieb

" Yes, bad or mediocre ballets can be useful to the dancers and temporarily fun for the audience, but in the long run, the lowering of standards can only erode the art form we all love. "

Robert Gottlieb