Suzanne Farrell

“I liked tap, because I liked hearing the results of my movements.”

“I learned to love dance for its own sake.”

“I had two sisters, and we would love to get dressed up and pretend that we were chic, sophisticated ladies. And I think that was a great sort of preparation, in a way.”

“I think especially in a world where you have so little say about what goes on in your life, or in the politics of the world around you, it is wonderful to go into that studio, and tell yourself what to do.”

“You don't learn from a situation where you do something well. You enjoy it and you give yourself credit, but you don't really learn from that. You learn from trial and error, trial and error, all the time.”

“The particular ballet was not so important as the fact that I was physically healthy, and capable of getting out there and dancing as often as possible.”

“I loved tests because it was another form of competing, a healthy competition.”

“When you are on stage, you don't see faces. The lights are in your eyes and you see just this black void out in front of you. And yet you know there is life out there, and you have to get your message across.”

“I like dramatic ballets, particularly if they're ballets in which I have a chance to go from one extreme of style or characterization to another.”

“When you get on stage, you can be anything. You are removed from reality in a way, the real world.”

“It's ungrateful to be wishing you were doing something else at the moment you are living. You haven't lived in the moment that you are really living, you are wishing you were somewhere else.”

“I didn't care too much for ballet, because you had to be more disciplined, and you sort of looked like everyone else. It required a certain kind of conformity that I didn't feel like I wanted to do.”

“So dancing was not something I had a great desire to do.”

“There is pain and sacrifice in everyone's world. That's why, when I was dancing, I had no pain.”

“I can't read a note. I have lots of discipline, but I can't sit still at any instrument.”

“And I just thought, this is what I want to be. And I knew that dancing would be my chosen profession.”

“As soon as I hear music, something in me starts to vibrate.”

“The body can do amazing things in a situation when it is really called for.”

“On the other hand, I think it is wonderful for everyone to take ballet classes, at any age. It gives you a discipline, it gives you a place to go. It gives you some control in your life.”

“That the work involved, the willingness to take chances, the commitment, the opportunity to get on stage and make people happy, was more important than becoming famous, or even what I was dancing.”