Best Ballet Quotes & Sayings

The last time I had to make a career decision, I was 17. I could have gone to Ballet Theatre or National Ballet of Canada. There were options. But as I became exposed to the Robbins repertoire, I realized that there was a living genius in the house. — Damian Woetzel

Line cooking done well is a beautiful thing to watch. It's a high-speed collaboration resembling, at its best, ballet or modern dance. — Anthony Bourdain

I did grow up in France, and even though I didn't go to the school or dance with the Paris Opera Ballet, I absorbed similar ideas in my training. I understand the scale of a big company. I danced for one for almost 20 years. — Benjamin Millepied

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

Every dance you make belongs to you. It is part of your collection. When you think of it like that, you'll want to make your next routine the best you've ever made! — Torron-Lee Dewar

I grew up as a dancer. I did tap, classical ballet, all of that. I did Indian dancing, or Bharata Natyam, classic temple dancing from Madras, originally. My mother always had the great idea that I should learn it. — Roselee Goldberg

I come alive, in front of the mirror, skipping and dancing and acting the fool. Dance is both escape and excitement. — Jody Watley

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. — Dianna Agron

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

I have a sister who is a dancer and dance teacher. We grew up dancing together. I wanted to become a ballerina when I was a kid, so she and I were always at ballet conservatories and going to school with our hair in buns. — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

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

All you can do is be your best self. I'm representing more than just me. I think everyone should be like that. — Misty Copeland

Ballet has a very small audience, unfortunately. — Sascha Radetsky

Yeah, I shoot. I shot with my dad a little bit when I was little. He was a Marine, so it wasn't like he would take me to the ballet. We would go to a shooting range. It was the only thing he knew to teach his little girl how to do. — Jill Wagner

At the time I started in ballet they were dancing 'The Spirit of Champagne' on pointe, in Paris. I thought, 'I don't want to dance the spirit of champagne, I want to drink it! — Martha Graham

I don't understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses. — Anton Chekhov

You have to be able to cut off from the ballet and relax, or you have anxiety dreams at night, worrying about what you're going to dance the next day, going over every little detail. — Darcey Bussell

Most ballet teachers in the United States are terrible. If they were in medicine, everyone would be poisoned. — George Balanchine

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

Ballet: men wearing pants so tight that you can tell what religion they are. — Robin Williams

For 24 hours a day, for 10 years, all I thought about was being in a band. That's all I did. I had no other social life. I don't want my life to be like that now. I've spent the past 10 years having a real life as well. But Spandau Ballet is such a difficult shadow to outrun. — Gary Kemp

I tell you, the arts - and especially ballet - the discipline is extraordinary. I was extremely impressed. — Dwayne Johnson

Kids see cooking as a creative outlet now, like soccer and ballet. It gives me hope that things like fast food, childhood obesity and the horrible state of school lunches can be addressed by kids and their parents. — Graham Elliot

I am not an educated person. I didn't come up through a ballet company. I came up through burlesque. So I have a lot of inferiority feelings concerning my own lack of education, my entry into show business. I'm not a Baryshnikov. I'm not a Nureyev. I came up in vaudeville. Strippers. So I've always had these feelings. But I think they've also helped me. — Bob Fosse

The best physique I ever had was when I was ballet dancing. — Manu Bennett

Clearly, the pleasures wines afford are transitory - but so are those of the ballet, or of a musical performance. Wine is inspiring and adds greatly to the joy of living. — Napoleon Bonaparte

My Mom is a ballet director, so I had this idea in me that classical training is the best foundation for anything you do, so I wanted to get a classical background and voice. — Shuler Hensley

The abuse of the best things is always detrimental. — Jean-Georges Noverre

The best seat in the house often depends on the ballet. For instance, much of the first act of 'The Nutcracker' is domestic and small scale, so it's great to sit up close. But the second act features elaborate scenery and choreography, which are better to observe from a distance. — Robert Gottlieb

It is the best of all games for me. It frequently escapes from the pattern of sport and assumes the form of a virile ballet. It is purer than any dance because the actions of the players are not governed by music or crowded into a formula by a director. The movement is natural and unrehearsed and controlled only by the unexpected flight of the ball. — Jimmy Cannon

In swimming at my level it's about control of the small movements. A good ballet dancer floats across the stage, the best sprinters virtually abolish gravity. All motion occurs in the right direction. — Alexander Dale Oen

When I was 12, I was doing competitive jazz, tap and ballet in Michigan. The studio put the best dancers together, and I joined that. We always did really, really well in local competitions. — Jillian Rose Reed

When I've done gymnastics, ballet or soccer - I was always trying to be the best. I'm really driven. Really driven. — Chloe Grace Moretz

I just stay healthy all year round. I try to feel good in my skin. For me, I have trained in ballet my whole life so my body really feels best when I feel strong and tight and toned, and I think that comes from years and years of constant training as a ballerina. Leading up to the show, getting out there in your underwear, you just want to feel your best mainly in your head than more anything else. Obviously you want to feel good physically too, so it's more just in your head, pushing yourself, approaching this challenge and taking the opportunity to push yourself a little further. — Angelina Jolie

That something that I fought so hard for throughout the beginning of my career is I didn't want to pancake my skin a lighter color to fit into the ... ballet. I wanted to be myself. I didn't want to have to wear makeup that made my nose look thinner. — Misty Copeland

How can men be such lummoxes, such wads of chewing gum on our ballet slippers and still feel so good? — Tom Robbins

I could have danced all night! — Alan Jay Lerner

For Russians, to whom Pushkin's poem 'Eugene Onegin' is sacred text, the ballet's story and personae are as familiar and filled with meaning as, for instance, 'Romeo' and 'Hamlet' are for us. Russians know whole stretches of it by heart, the way we know Shakespeare and Italians know Dante. — Robert Gottlieb

I had rather be a meteor, single, alone.'

Plus Paris itself was noisome. Even with its glittering bridges and orangeries, even if the birthplace of ballet.

'I had rather been a meteor, than a star in a crowd. — Danielle Dutton

We determine whether a book is for boys or girls long before the reader gets a chance to decide: we package them with soldiers and ballet slippers on their covers, war machines and glittering gowns. — Marie Lu

I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I was bad - I'm not very coordinated. But I always wished I could have been a dancer. — Gia Coppola

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. — Nigel Lythgoe

People often say to me - how clever you are! How brilliant to be able to go from ballet to theatre as you do. I answer that it is not clever at all. It is the gift of looking at oneself coolly, of calculating the future objectively. I could see the danger signals as far as ballet was concerned before anyone else did, that's all. — Robert Helpmann

Boxing is my real passion. I can go to ballet, theatre, movies, or other sporting events ... and nothing is like the fights to me. I'm excited by the visual beauty of it. A boxer can look so spectacular by doing a good job. — LeRoy Neiman

Figure skating is an unlikely Olympic event but its good television. It's sort of a combination of gymnastics and ballet. A little sexy too which doesn't hurt. — Andy Rooney

To change the world, you must first change yourself. And baby, that's hard enough. — Alonzo King

Ballet is only good when it is great. — Arlene Croce

I can't think of a better way to start my day."
"Get used to it," he murmured, right before he kissed her. — Samantha Chase

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. — Olivia Cooke

I'll never be satisfied in classical ballet. It'll never be good enough. I'll never be happy with most of my product. — David Hallberg

On the line beside Describe your family, I wrote, "Bad."

What is your favorite subject in school? "None."

List three of your favorite activities. "Soccer, ballet, and fighting."

Two of those favorite activities were lies but one of them was the truth.

I am fond of fighting. — Barbara O'Connor

The greater the fool the better the dancer. — Theodore Hook

If we don't take that time (to be romantic), then it's karate, then it's ballet, and then there's Christmas, and then my husband is flying off to tour around the world. — Heidi Klum

There are places in the world where real life is still happening, far away from here, in a pre-Hitler Europe, where hundreds of lights are lit every evening, ladies and gentlemen gather to drink coffee with cream in oak-panelled rooms, or sit comfortably in splendid coffee-houses under gilt chandeliers, stroll arm in arm to the opera or the ballet, observe from close-up the lives of great artists, passionate love affairs, broken hearts, the painter's girlfriend falling in love with his best friend the composer, and going out at midnight bareheaded in the rain to stand alone on the ancient bridge whose reflection trembles in the river. * — Amos Oz

I have always loved fashion because it's a great way to express your mood. And I'm definitely a shoe lover. The right pair of shoes can change the feel of an outfit, and even change how a woman feels about herself. A woman can wear confidence on her feet with a high stiletto, or slip into weekend comfort with a soft ballet flat. — Fergie

If a boxer ever went as crazy as Nijinsky all the wowsers in the world would be screaming 'punch-drunk.' Well, who hit Nijinsky? And why isn't there a campaign against ballet? It gives girls thick legs — A.J. Liebling

I grew up studying ballet; I grew up honing my craft. — Janice Dickinson

It [ballet] projects a fragile kind of strength and a certain inflexible precision. — Ayn Rand