Style consists in maintaining a convincing reality all through a piece. It's like wearing a garment that looks as if it might have been made for you even if it wasn't.

To think of criticism as a conversation is to think of it as a social act, something that puts you in touch with other people who may think the way you do.

Writing is the process by which you explain to yourself what happened to you.

Ballet is only good when it is great.

When I left the theater… I was thinking that I’d seen a classic of American dance. It confers a mythic dimension on ordinary aspects of our daily lives – it’s unfaked folk art. The dancers, crashing wave upon wave into those falls, have a happy insane spirit that recalls a unique moment in American life – the time we did the school play or we were ready to drown at a swimming meet. The last time most of us were happy in that way.

True genius doesn't fulfill expectations, it shatters them.

Style consists in maintaining a convincing reality all through a piece. It's like wearing a garment that looks as if it might have been made for you even if it wasn't.