I wanted to invent some kind of American dance that was danced to the music that I grew up on: Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart and Irving Berlin. So I evolved a style that certainly didn't catch on right away - but I had some good mentors in New York who encouraged me.

There is a certain amount of pornography that exists throughout Purple Rain, but the appeal is obvious. You can really pick that picture apart and see where "A" fits into "B" and so on. It was very wisely done.

I may be rancid butter, but I'm on your side of the bread.

I arrived in Hollywood twenty pounds overweight and as strong as an ox. But if I put on a white tails and tux like Fred Astaire, I still looked like a truck driver.

You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams.

In fact, I wasn't going to dance in Xanadu, but several journalists told me that Olivia Newton-John kept saying how sad she was that she wouldn't get the chance to dance with me. So I finally said, "All right, throw in a number." But I'm through with dancing.

First of all, break-dancing has been done for years, though not all of it put together the way it is now. But, actually, the distinctions have been blurring since the 1950s.