Ballet Quotes · Page 20

This is not a pleasant route for many young people to consider. You have to be either hopelessly passionate, or very stupid.

— Twyla Tharp

The cat crossed the street daintily, pointing his feet like a ballet dancer, lifting them high as if his feet were too…

— Vera Caspary

As an adult, I took ballet classes three times a week, and I believed it gave me better posture, a stronger body,…

— Ann Hood

I ended up training only for four years before I was accepted into American Ballet Theater in New York City.

— Misty Copeland

My background is somewhat unusual, as I trained to be a ballet dancer. I worked in the theatre for eight or nine…

— Will Kemp

I was a protege; by the age of 10, I was studying with ballet choreographer Anthony Tudor in a class of adults.

— Judith Jamison

In France, ballet is on TV ... It's on the eight-o'clock news. It's a cool thing to be a dancer.

— Benjamin Millepied

There was never really a moment that I decided that I wanted to be a ballet dancer. It's always just felt like…

— Francesca Hayward

If Shanghai wants to be an international cultural center, they have to do something about that. The reason I left is that…

— Yuan Yuan Tan

Ballet really lends itself to that because there's such a sense of ritual, with wrapping the shoes every day and preparing new…

— Natalie Portman

Culture in America and everywhere else comes from the suffering, from those who don't want the old ways. They want to bring…

— Russell Simmons

Another friend began to say, "Well, Quentin has a problem of adjusting himself to society and he..." This sentence was never finished.…

— Quentin Crisp

My parents sent me to a ballet class which lasted no time at all - I couldn't really dance. So they sent…

— Amanda Redman

Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's…

— Steve Sabol

I was used to dancing, but only when someone told you what to do. So in the nightclub I was all over…

— Madonna Ciccone

My career came together very quickly. I only trained for four years before I became a professional, so I didn't have a…

— Misty Copeland

We usually spend one hour per week on ballet but Marta Karolyi has us do a lot of compulsory floor in the…

— Kristie Phillips

So if the dance is five minutes long, make yourself run for perhaps eight minutes. That way, you over-train and the dance…

— Deborah Bull

I know that I'll forever be involved in ballet. This is where my life was meant to be, and I don't see…

— Misty Copeland

My first ballet class was on a basketball court. I'm in my gym clothes and my socks trying to do this thing…

— Misty Copeland

“O wayfarer! Yearn finds quench, not in meadows, seashores or altitude of mountain peaks; but when being and dance are one.”

— Shah Asad Rizvi

A brand-new pair of toe shoes presents itself to us as an enemy with a will of its own that must be…

— Toni Bentley

I loved being at the Royal Ballet. Those choreographers, MacMillan and Ashton, they knew how to translate complicated life into choreography.

— Sylvie Guillem

I'm so happy that I ventured out beyond the Royal Ballet - which is my home, and I love it - but…

— Francesca Hayward

Ballet is an incredibly difficult, beautiful art form that takes a lot of training, a lot of time, and a lot of…

— Sutton Foster

I'd make all schoolchildren take ballet lessons every morning. And I'd ban advertising aimed at children.

— Helen Baxendale

The ballet world is so competitive, and for no reason. It's not a sport. It's an art. There's no winner.

— Sergei Polunin

I started with ballet, and once I started to really like it, I got into more - I did jazz and tap,…

— Maddie Ziegler

Ballet class is like Life Lessons 101. You learn some of life's most important lessons here that you will carry with you forever.

— Joanne H Morscher

Sometimes during a ballet I'll look around and see all these rows of intent faces, concentrating on this beautiful thing up on…

— Robert Caro

It is shameful that dancing should renounce the empire it might assert over the mind and only endeavor to please the sight.

— Jean-Georges Noverre

Each time a dancer moves devoutly or a composer faithfully searches the silence for the veiled melodies, eternity is engaged.

— Maya Angelou

I'd quit ballet school, which I thought was going to be my path, but my gut instinct told me to do something…

— Alicia Vikander

“The whole Esther Williams of it all. The ostrich ballet. Like pirouetting feather dusters; their paddle feet in fourth position.”

— Durga Chew-Bose

I have a personal trainer. But I tried boxing; I tried ballet. I tried everything to see what works best for my…

— Barbara Palvin

I used to love ballet and I did it really, really intensely. But it came so much about achieving physical perfection, which…

— Mia Wasikowska

I think that ballet is very good for the body. It's very similar to yoga, because you have to hold a position.

— Carine Roitfeld

I don't feel like my life is that of a superstar! Every day I wake up, I take the train, I go…

— Misty Copeland

Tennis is more than just a sport. It's an art, like the ballet. Or like a performance in the theater.

— Bill Tilden

When I was nine, I started doing ballet. That's when I knew that I was down to keep doing it.

— Ansel Elgort