I've been in a competitive situation almost all my life. I've been having a competition with myself and trying to be the best I could be.

I haven't had a family, but I don't think of that as a sacrifice: my dancers are my family.

You don't enter a dance studio and say "I can't do that." If you do, then why are you in the studio in the first place?

It's never too early to teach your children about the tool of money. Teach them how to work for it and they learn pride and self-respect. Teach them how to save it and they learn security and self-worth. Teach them how to be generous with it and they learn love.

The word 'suffering' is not in my vocabulary.

If you look at a dancer in silence, his or her body will be the music. If you turn the music on, that body will become an extension of what you're hearing.

Dancing is being trusted with other people's guts; choreographing is trusting other people with yours. When I choreograph I'm giving a dancer something to do and trusting the dancer to do it and build on it.