To express what is the most moral, healthful and beautiful in art this is the mission of the dancer, and to this I dedicate my life.

There are likewise three kinds of dancers: first, those who consider dancing as a sort of gymnastic drill, made up of impersonal and graceful arabesques; second, those who, by concentrating their minds, lead the body into the rhythm of a desired emotion, expressing a remembered feeling or experience. And finally, there are those who convert the body into a luminous fluidity, surrendering it to the inspiration of the soul.

I had learned to have a perfect nausea for the theatre: the continual repetition of the same words and the same gestures, night after night, and the caprices, the way of looking at life, and the entire rigmarole disgusted me.

Man must speak, then sing, then dance. The speaking is the brain, the thinking man. The singing is the emotion. The dancing is the Dionysian ecstasy which carries away all.

I finally discovered the source of all movement, the unity from which all diversities of movement are born.

I had discovered that love might be a pastime as well as a tragedy, and I gave myself to it with pagan innocence.

One might say that the American trend of education is to reduce the senses almost to nil.