Ballet Quotations

At the ballet, you really feel like you're in the presence of something outside the rest of your life. Higher than the rest of your life.

At age 10, I was better at ballet than I think I will ever be at any physical activity for the rest of my life.

I've never danced professionally as a ballet dancer, but all of my training is ballet, and I am a Fosse dancer.

When I was five years old, I told my parents that I wanted to take ballet. So, ballet was the focus of my life... until puberty. Then I discovered boys and started dating a guy with a mohawk who'd come to my ballet class and freak everybody out. Shortly after that is when I quit.

'Swan Lake' is the most difficult thing to portray for a female ballet dancer; it really requires such specific qualities of articulation, agility, strength, and the arm work is something that takes a lot of training.

When life takes me on a new journey, I simply remember the smile my first ballet recital put on my face and I move forward.

Dance is very, very old. With Louis XIV at Versailles is where ballet started.

My mum took me to the ballet at three, and that was the only time I sat still, with jaw open, mesmerised. She brought me home, and I wouldn't stop dancing.

Most dancers have no awareness of how they look; half of them think they're fat. There is anorexia in the ballet world; there are those things.

Ballet is completely unnatural to the body, just being turned out... it's not the way your body is supposed to function, so you actually train your body to be a different structure than you were born with.

In ballet a complicated story is impossible to tell ... we can't dance synonyms.

Hip hop classes and ballet are what I've been keeping up with, and of course my usual abdominal workout, which consists of 500 sit-ups a session. Or I take a 30-minute abs class at my gym. But dance classes are a full-body cardio workout, which always brings me success and keeps me feeling great.

I did community theater in Georgia and called myself a ballet dancer.

I'd love to look like my mum when I am her age. She taught ballet for years, and my attitude to exercise and fitness has definitely been influenced by her. She's 84 now, and I've watched how well she has aged, and a lot of that is to do with her fantastic posture.

When Disney was creating Elsa, they based a lot of her movements on that of a ballerina, which was interesting for me to find out because I actually did ballet years ago. That definitely informed some of the ways I made her walk and move.

I love ballet. Ballet is its own being. It has its own vocabulary. I feel as if I am in a different world when I am in the ballet studio.

All ballet, all reading, all music. That was my world, my inner world,

Me in high school, I was kind of a loner. I had a handful of friends. I'd eat my lunch in my car every day in my senior year. I went to ballet. I was a ballerina, so I was very focused on that. You kind of have to be. That was two-thirds of my week, going to ballet class.

If I'm at a party, I can put on some crazy dance moves. However, it's not synchronized, beautiful or choreographed like a ballet dancer. I'd love to be graceful like that.

What 'War and Peace' is to the novel and 'Hamlet' is to the theater, Swan Lake' is to ballet - that is, the name which to many people stands for and sums up an art form.

I had seen the ballet of 'Swan Lake' as a child but it was as an adult, when I saw a production featuring Erik Bruhn, that I first noticed how significant a part the ever-present threat of violence played. This juxtaposition of great beauty and grace with a backdrop of pure evil stayed with me for years.

I did ballet and gymnastics, and then I started acting when I was eight - just doing amateur theater at a place called Oldham Theatre Workshop in my hometown.

I took several years of dance lessons that included ballet, tap and jazz. They helped a great deal with body control, balance, a sense of rhythm, and timing.

Ballet is sort of a mystery to me. And I don't want to unravel that mystery.

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.

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.

I attended Professional Children's School in Manhattan because my ballet and modern dance schedules were intensive and had started to interfere with regular school hours.

There would never have been a British Ballet without Diaghilev. He had a wonderful influence

The best physique I ever had was when I was ballet dancing.

I came from the musical stage. My first show was '110 In The Shade.' I started as a ballet dancer and then sort of gravitated toward musical theater, so any time I got asked to sing or dance, it was a joy for me.

My years of ballet and jazz dance lessons didn't make me any more graceful - they just helped keep me from bumping into the furniture on stage.

My earliest memory is of sitting at Mum's dance school, watching her teach a ballet class.

I always wanted to act and sing, but my first love was ballet.

Ballet really taught me so much about the power of movement.

A pas de deux is a dialogue of love. How can there be conversation if one partner is dumb?

The first time the Kirov ballet was seen in America was on Sept. 11, 1961. The ballet was 'Swan Lake.' The ballerina was Inna Zubkovskaya. The place was the old Met, on what must have been one of the hottest nights of the year, and there was no air-conditioning.

I danced with passion to spite the music.

Misty Copeland is making history. During American Ballet Theatre's current season at the Metropolitan Opera House, Copeland will alight on that storied Lincoln Center stage, making her New York debut as the Swan Queen in the iconic masterpiece Swan Lake - a crowning achievement for any dancer, regardless of the color of her skin.

If nobody comes to your shows, then it's modern dance. If everybody comes to your shows and no one likes it, is that ballet? I don't know.

I started taking ballet lessons when I was three and a half and I still take dance classes.

I was serious about ballet for a long time, but my mom got me into tap and jazz and modern and hip-hop, and I was one of those over-lessoned children.

It was something I was more interested in myself. When I went to see my sister dance at ballet, I was really into costumes and the arts, and my family was also supportive of whatever me and my sister wanted to do. I would say I pushed myself the most to be into design.

I did tap dancing and stuff like that at drama school. I did ballet as well. My dance teacher and I didn't necessarily get along all that well sometimes. She's brilliant... but it's just because I don't like wearing tights that I put up a bit of a fight there, I think.

I do take class because I still dance, and yes, I do slip into class with the Royal Ballet from time to time.

Dancing for the length of time that I did, it centered me in such a way to be really in tune with my body, and I just feel like I'm physically able to do things because of my ballet background. Without ballet, I don't think I'd look graceful at all on screen.

I want to be a lawyer, a dancer, an actress, a mother, a wife, a children's author, a distance runner, a poet, a pianist, a pet store owner, an astronaut, an environmental and humanitarian activist, a psychiatrist, a ballet teacher, and the first woman president.

I started with ballet and then my cousin Sarah introduced me to her tap teachers.

Mum, who had been a dancer with a small ballet company before she got married, was full of encouragement. She didn't say, "This is really good, you should do this", She just encouraged us to do whatever we liked.

Even though I am a professional, and I know what the steps are, I don't quite know how I'm going to do them, because I haven't lived that moment yet. I always feel very insecure and I get very excited.

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

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

Dancing is a tough career, but I'm glad I spent it at the Royal Ballet.

Ballet is such a disciplined craft and it has given me a good grounding.

When I stopped doing ballet, I started training in the pool. I would do my barre exercises in the water, because that prevents injuries.

I really wanted to make it as a ballet dancer to make my mom proud. But it didnt happen.

I've always been in love with Melbourne. When I was 12, I was taken into the city by my grandmother to go to the ballet for the first time.

Ballet is good, because it makes you stand up tall.

Look at where I lived! Four blocks from Lincoln Center. I used to play in the fountain. And then I started taking dance lessons. I was in 'The Nutcracker' for the N.Y. City Ballet when I was 8 and dancing in 'The Firebird' for George Balanchine when I was 9. Believe me, that's something you don't ever forget.

From the age of four, I loved ballet and tap. I was in the school band, the choir, and all my school plays.

I deliberately made an effort not to become an expert on the ballet.

I grew up studying ballet; I grew up honing my craft.

Ballet-girls have a bad reputation, which is in most cases well deserved

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

There's nothing like the force and challenge of a new ballet to galvanize everyone involved in bringing it to life.

I toured the Middle Eastern countries with the ballet.

You increase muscle bulk by training against resistance. For example, weights. And in ballet, this isn't the case.

I love ballet because you can see how beautiful the body is.

I wanted so badly to study ballet, but it was really all about wearing the tutu.

I had never picked up a basketball before. I went through a grueling audition process. It was almost as if I was learning to walk. It would be like teaching somebody to dance ballet for a role.

One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind?

So many people report to be contemporary dancers, and they're not. They are sort of jazz dancers that feel like they're throwing a bit of classical in there. I mean, a true contemporary dancer has got ballet as their base and classical ballet, and that is their base. And then they choose to extemporize on that and go into a contemporary world.

What I fell in love with as a child was 'My Fair Lady,' 'Funny Face,' 'American in Paris,' and 'Singin' in the Rain.' Just perfect movies to me and I was dancing. I started ballet when I was three. And I fell in love with those movies and fell in love with Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron.

There might've been wires, but I have this ability to make myself light. Well you know what, in ballet, when you kind of lift yourself here, it's all up in the head.

I took ballet dancing forever, and there was a natural transition into acting.

The music industry is so easy compared to the ballet world

I've been dancing my entire life. Jazz, hip hop, ballet. And then there's tap dancing. I love to tap.

I used to dance when I was younger - ballet and modern dance.

The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15

The heart of the classical repertory is the Tchaikovsky-Petipa 'Sleeping Beauty,' and no ballet is harder to get right.

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

I think that taking ballet is one of the best things a girl can do. Period.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. When a ballet company spends a lot of money on gimmicky pieces, it's stuck with them for a while - they have to earn their keep.

Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important.

In the world of classical ballet there are only a handful of story ballets, so getting a new one is cause for excitement.

My personal trainer is an ex-dancer so we do a lot of ballet and jazz.

I didn't care too much for ballet, because you had to be more disciplined, and you sort of looked like everyone else. It required a certain kind of conformity that I didn't feel like I wanted to do.

I never went to a ballet until I was 45 years old. I don't know why.

Mr. Balanchine was a great gentleman, and he loved his dancers. He was devoted to his company. He came to the ballet every night, and his presence was felt. It was like the whole company was dancing for him. And if he liked you, he trusted you to be yourself. He didn't try to change you and make you into something you were not.

I do ballet and pointe work. I also do tap, commercial jazz and technical jazz, freestyle street dancing.

I am trained, and I did do 'The Nutcracker' in its right form, but at the time, they told me I was black and I'd never be in 'Swan Lake.' I went through all those prejudices in the ballet community, and I still emerged wonderfully trained and found my way to Alvin Ailey where there were familiar faces.

I've always been a bit of a poser. I was chucked out of ballet lessons for looking in the mirror.

I have a ballet barre in my gym. I turn the music up so loud that the walls are pulsating, and I go for it for an hour.

In the Thirties, when I was in New York, I did the first surrealistic ballet in a show of mine.

When you're a child, you take things for granted. For instance, my mum didn't have a lot of money, but I went to piano, ballet and gymnastics lessons, and tae kwon do.

I hated the ballet, but I liked performing. I did 20 shows, and I couldn't get the smile off my face.

I do after-school ballet and also hip-hop and jazz.

As a kid, I had a lot of energy; but the ballet lessons made me calm - this pleased my mother.

I'd say the only time I ever get nervous is around great ballet dancers or people I really admire.

Ballet pumps are the dream shoes because they are so comfortable. They look great both with jeans and summer dresses; and you can even wear the right pair with an evening gown.

I started taking ballet lessons when I was 4, and I was performing in ballet companies when I was 10, and I did summer stock in Miami Beach when I was 12, and finally I said, 'I gotta go to Broadway.'