I can always invent movement, and sometimes it can be fitted into the right place, but that is not choreography. It is the music that dictates the whole shape of the work. I do not believe in the permanence of anything in ballet save the purely classical.

What are you waiting for? What are you saving for? Now is all there is.

I am a cloud - in trousers.

In my ballets, woman is first. Men are consorts. God made men to sing the praises of women. They are not equal to men: They are better.

I cannot move, I cannot even want to move, unless I hear the music first.

Ballet dancing is arduous, strenuous activity. Students are engaged in physical training that rivals the training Olympic athletes undergo. At the same time, they strive for physical perfection not for the prowess alone but as a way of achieving the means necessary to express the pure nature of their art.

Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for - for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.