Ballet Quotes - Page 3

• There might've been wires, but I have this ability to make myself light. Well you know what, in ballet, when you kind of lift yourself here, it's all up in the head.

  Albert Finney

  Light, Wire, Might

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• If a ballet dancer falls over, it's knowing how to get out looking clumsy that counts.

  Ritchie Blackmore

  Fall, Knowing, Dancer

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• I took several years of dance lessons that included ballet, tap and jazz. They helped a great deal with body control, balance, a sense of rhythm, and timing.

  Lynn Swann

  Sports, Years, Balance

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• The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15

  Robert Caro

  Rose, Firsts, Wonderful

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• Dance is not an exercise. Dance is an art.

  Alicia Alonso

  Dance, Art, Exercise

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• The vocabulary and manner of classical ballet express a high order of discipline and restraint, a sense of harmony with forces larger and more lasting than the individual.

  Marcia Siegel

  Vocabulary, Order, Ballet Class

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  Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.

  George Carlin

  Inspirational, Life, Music

  George Carlin (2002). “Napalm & Silly Putty”, Hyperion

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• Dance light, for my heart it lies under your feet, love.

  John Francis Waller

  Lying, Heart, Light

  John Francis WALLER (1854). “Poems”, p.229

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• We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.

  Albert Einstein

  Dance, Dream, Art

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• Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully, and with inevitability. Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made. Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!

  Constanze Mozart

  Dance, Dream, Art

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• They danced by the light of the moon.

  Edward Lear

  Dance, Moon, Light

  "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" l. 21 (1871)

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• Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance

  T. S. Eliot

  Inspirational, Life, Dancing

  T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.181, Faber & Faber

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• On dancing on pointe: Why don't they just get taller girls?

  Henny Youngman

  Girl, Dancing, Tiptoes

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• To brisk notes in cadence beating, glance their many-twinkling feet.

  Thomas Gray

  Feet, Cadence, Notes

  Thomas Gray, John Mitford (1816). “The poems, with critical notes, a life of the author, and an essay on his poetry, by J. Mitford”, p.33

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• A fine picture is but the image of nature; a finished ballet is nature herself.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Fine, Finished

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• Ballet's image of perfection is fashioned amid a milieu of wracked bodies, fevered imaginations, Balkan intrigue and sulfurous hatreds where anything is likely, and dancers know it.

  Shana Alexander

  Imagination, Perfection, Dancer

  Shana Alexander (2015). “Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder: A Family Album”, p.235, Open Road Media

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• What's so wonderful about ballet is that it's mind-driven physicality. It's almost a Greek ideal of body, mind, and form.

  Edward Villella

  Dance, Greek, Mind

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• The abuse of the best things is always detrimental.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Abuse, Best Things, Detrimental

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• In order that our art may arrive at the degree of the sublime which I demand and hope for, it is imperative for dancers to divide their time and studies between the mind and the body, and that both become the object of their application; but, unfortunately, all is given to the latter and nothing to the former. The legs are rarely guided by the brain, and, since intelligence and taste do not reside in the feet, one often goes astray.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Art, Feet, Order

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• I think most dancers would agree that the art of ballet chooses the dancer, not the other way around.

  Kevin McKenzie

  Art, Thinking, Dancer

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• I should never conclude were I to speak to you of all the misfortunes which have their origin in the faulty carriage of the body. All these defects, mortifying for those who have contracted them, cannot be remedied except in their early stages. A habit born in childhood is strengthened in youth, becomes deeply rooted in adulthood and is incurable in old age.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Childhood, Age, Body

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• The greater the fool the better the dancer.

  Theodore Hook

  Dancing, Dancer, Fool

  Theodore Edward Hook, Richard Harris Dalton Barham (1849). “The Life and Remains of Theodore Edward Hook: Life”, p.128

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• No matter the style, the farther one goes the more obstacles increase, and the more distant appears the object it is desired to attain. Again, the most strenuous labor affords the greatest artists but a disquieting gleam which only reveals their inadequacy, while the self-satisfied ignoramus surrounded by the deepest gloom flatters himself that he has nothing more to learn.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Artist, Self, Style

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• We should realize in a vivid and revolutionary sense that we are not in our bodies but our bodies are in us.

  Ruth St. Denis

  Dance, Denial, Body

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• Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Dancing, Mind

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.145

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