The body is a sacred garment. It's your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor.

I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it.

Pity is a corroding thing.

A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish. After all, I choreographed for myself. I never choreographed what I could not do. I changed steps in Medea and other ballets to accommodate the change. But I knew. And it haunted me. I only wanted to dance.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.

Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery - what it all means, the way the little bone near the ankle relates itself to the floor for a perfect stance, a perfect plie.

The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist. It is a miracle. And the dance is a celebration of that miracle.