Some people seem to think that good dancers are born, but all the good dancers I have known are taught or trained.

I don't want to be the oldest performer in captivity... I don't want to look like a little old man dancing out there.

Oh, there's no such thing as my favorite performance. I can't sit here today and look back, and say, Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any of the others. I just don't look back, period. When I finish with a project, I say 'all right, that's that. What's next?'

When you're experimenting you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, and you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion.

I often take a brand-new suit or hat and throw it up against the wall a few times to get that stiff, square newness out of it.

I have never had anything that I can remember in the business - and that includes all the movies and the stage shows and everything - that I didn't enjoy. I didn't like some of the small-time vaudeville, because we weren't going on and getting better. Aside from that, I didn't dislike anything.

I'm just a hoofer with a spare set of tails.