Suzanne Farrell Dance Quotations

I liked to read but, being a dancer, I didn't have a lot of time to read.

I had a wonderful childhood, coming from Cincinnati, and I think that it was great going into the life that I was going to have, where you have to start young as a dancer.

I'm thought of as a cool, unemotional dancer, but inside I'm not.

Although we do come from a silent profession, it is important for us to verbalize what we want to say. (As I tell my students): you could love someone all your life, but if you never say it how are they going to know? There comes a point when you have to say what you mean, which makes you scream louder when you dance.

I was very happy that I was as normal as possible before I went into serious dance.

I think it was important that I learned to love to dance eventually for its own sake, as opposed to wanting to be a ballerina.

Dancers are a great breed of people. And they really want to dance so you don't have to beg them to work. However, dancers sometimes build walls around themselves because they are presenting themselves all the time: dancing is very much a confession.

I learned to love dance for its own sake.

I still feel like a 15 year-old girl coming to New York. Dancing does that to you. I think it keeps you really young.

When you are on stage, you don't see faces. The lights are in your eyes and you see just this black void out in front of you. And yet you know there is life out there, and you have to get your message across.

To have been part of that evening -- and now I am truly honored and privileged. I loved dancing and how fortunate I am to have had a career I loved doing.

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.

Fifth positions, heads, musicality, energy. Not technical things so much-getting your leg higher or doing more turns but things that would set you apart from other dancers. The only way you can be different is to be yourself If you don't find your spirit and reveal it, you just look like every other dancer.

I set as my goal to be the best dancer I could be. Not the most famous, or the highest paid dancer, just the best I could be. Out of this discipline came great freedom and calm.

As soon as I hear music, something in me starts to vibrate.

After I stopped dancing, I was unable to listen to beautiful music.

My mother was very interested in giving her daughters the advantage of music and dance, if we had an interest in it. My father was not.

It brought out in me the person whom I had the potential to become. I think that's why I loved it for its own sake, not to be a ballerina.

I was grateful that I had dancing to fall back on. It was my survival tactic. It was my friend. It was always there.

And I think it was important that I learned to love to dance eventually for its own sake, as opposed to wanting to be a ballerina.

The wonderful thing about life it that there will always be variables. You have to see them and be aware of them to know how to react to them.