I think art education, especially in this country, which government pretty much ignores, is so important for young people.

I want to do exactly what I want to do. I'd rather gamble on the box office than beg for a grant.

Creative Artists Agency put together a project of extraordinary mediocrity and colossal stupidity. Otherwise, it was great.

I cannot belong to a nonprofit organization because when you receive grants, you have to make such great compromises with your artistic plans.

I have been very lucky to work in so many new ballets, but that is what a dancer's work is.

I kind of lost interest in the classical dance. I was very much interested in the modern choreography.

To achieve some depth in your field requires a lot of sacrifices. Want to or not, you're thinking about what you're doing in life-in my case, dancing.

You cannot be happy with your family while being personally unhappy with your work. It's a Catch-22 kind of thing.

It's what's left in life, to work with interesting people.

No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.

I really reject that kind of comparison that says, Oh, he is the best. This is the second best. There is no such thing.

I have some Russian friends. But probably only 10 percent. I don't hang out usually in the big Russian communities in Brooklyn and New Jersey.

I go a lot to see young people downtown in little theaters. It's great. If you start somebody's career, it's so exciting.

Working is living to me.

Dancing is my obsession. My life.

It's weird when you see pieces of choreography that were done for you 15 or 20 years ago and now they are being done by another dance company.

Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important.

I am not the first straight dancer or the last.

I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. I played their game, pretending. You have to deal with, you know, party people, KGB. Horrifying.

I feel very uneasy with a lot of aspects of the Russian life and the Russian people.

I think art education, especially in this country, which government pretty much ignores, is so important for young people.

People of art should never get married and have children, because it's a selfish experience.

Dancers are stripped enough onstage. You don't have to know more about them than they've given you already.

The Russian people get so insanely close to each other as friends. Their lives are interrelated so much on an everyday basis.

I get speeding ticket like everybody else. If the restaurant is full I'm waiting in line like everybody else.

Astaire was not a sexual animal, but he made his partners look so extraordinarily related to him.

To walk across the street is a risk.

Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.

Dancers are made, not born.

Dances have a second and third life. You feel they are never ready. They always have a chance for another life.

I - you know, I'm not an actor.

I adored my mother, and I will always have extraordinary memories about her and remember her, and she opened the doors for me to appreciate arts.

I am a performer. I go on stage and make a fool of myself.

I am not trying to do material which I cannot do full out.

I am teaching more. That is what I do best.

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.

I don't want to do anything Freudian.

I fell in love with New York. It was like every human being, like any relationship. When I was a young New Yorker, it was one city. When I was a grown man, it was another city. I worked with many dance organizations and many wonderful people.

I found that dance, music, and literature is how I made sense of the world... it pushed me to think of things bigger than life's daily routines... to think beyond what is immediate or convenient.

I have made mistakes.

I have the life of seven cats.

I know when I am on stage and I'm kind of on the right track - hopefully most of the time. But a lot of time I'm not.

I like to go to anybody else's birthday, and if I'm invited I'm a good guest. But I never celebrate my birthdays. I really don't care.

I like to make my own mistakes.

I miss horribly those couple of hours before the performance when you get into the theater and you see people.

I read Russian literature a lot.

I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked.

I spend at least a couple hours a day in the studio, every day, whether I'm dancing or not.

I think I got disappointed over the years about New York, about the States. You know, sometimes you go and visit Europe and see good old socialism in its good part! You see public concern about art, and young people's participation and young faces in the audience.