Margot Fonteyn

... when I left the stage door and sought my orientation among real people I was in a wilderness of unpredictables in…

— Margot Fonteyn

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art…

— Margot Fonteyn

...wherever one is, some part of oneself remains on another continent.

— Margot Fonteyn

Life forms illogical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who…

— Margot Fonteyn

“People who live in big cities are deprieved, consciously or unconsciously, of those almost indefinable things on which our human sensitivity feeds,…

— Margot Fonteyn

The world of dance is a natural world from which civilization has divorced many of us by making it appear remote -…

— Margot Fonteyn

Life offstage has sometimes been a wilderness of unpredictables in an unchoreographed world.

— Margot Fonteyn

Dancing was something to be taken very seriously when engaged in and otherwise put out of mind.

— Margot Fonteyn

I have never wanted to live to be old, so old I'd run out of friends or money.

— Margot Fonteyn

Minor things can become moments of great revelation when encountered for the first time

— Margot Fonteyn

Take your work seriously, but never yourself.

— Margot Fonteyn

I’ve found the perfect partner.

— Margot Fonteyn

The most important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking ones self…

— Margot Fonteyn

Jumping for joy' is a very basic human reaction, and a child skipping down the street is simply an untrained dancer.

— Margot Fonteyn

The world of dance is a charmed place. Some people like to inhabit it, others to behold it; either way it is…

— Margot Fonteyn

Dancers are both athletes and artists.

— Margot Fonteyn

Ballet is more than a profession - it is a way of life.

— Margot Fonteyn

There is no way anything of value can be done without some framework. It might well be that the framework is discarded…

— Margot Fonteyn

Traveling carries with it the curse of being at home everywhere and yet nowhere, for wherever one is some part of oneself…

— Margot Fonteyn

The essential thing about mothers is that one needs to know that they are there, particularly at that age when, paradoxically, one…

— Margot Fonteyn

the first night is the worst possible time to make a hard and fast criticism: the baby never looks its best on…

— Margot Fonteyn

generally speaking, we are all happier when we are still striving for achievement than when the prize is in our hands.

— Margot Fonteyn

Genius is another word for magic.

— Margot Fonteyn

Genius is another word for magic, and the whole point of magic is that it is inexplicable.

— Margot Fonteyn

Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

— Margot Fonteyn