The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener..

Storyless is not abstract. Two dancers on the stage are enough material for a story; for me, they are already a story in themselves.

See the music, hear the dance..

Put a man and a girl on stage and there is already a story; a man and two girls, there's already a plot..

I cannot move, I cannot even want to move, unless I hear the music first..

It's like the time capsule with everything in it. Or like the seed that when you plant it, becomes the enormous tree with leaves and fruit. Everybody….

If you don't feel challenged, it's because you're not doing enough. Ballet should never feel comfortable. Comfortable is lazy! If you're comfortable ….

What are you waiting for? What are you saving for? Now is all there is..

Music must be seen, and dance must be heard.

God creates, I do not create. I assemble and I steal everywhere to do it - from what I see, from what the dancers can do, from what others do..

One is born to be a dancer. No teacher can work miracles, nor will years of training make a good dancer of an untalented pupil. One may be able to ac….

I can always invent movement, and sometimes it can be fitted into the right place, but that is not choreography. It is the music that dictates the wh….

In my ballets, woman is first. Men are consorts. God made men to sing the praises of women. They are not equal to men: They are better..

Someone once said that dancers work just as hard as policeman, always alert, always tense. But I don't agree with that because policeman don't have t….

First comes the sweat. Then comes the beauty if you're very lucky and have said your prayers..

Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays..

I don't have a past. I have a continuous present. The past is part of the present, just as the future is. We exist in time..

We must first realize that dancing is an absolutely independent art, not merely a secondary accompanying one. I believe that it is one of the great a….

Ballet dancing is arduous, strenuous activity. Students are engaged in physical training that rivals the training Olympic athletes undergo. At the sa….

I don't want people who want to dance; I want people who have to dance..

The mirror is not you. The mirror is you looking at yourself..