Suzanne Farrell

“Once I started dancing, I was not the spoiled brat or the rebellious child that I was as a child.”

“I didn't have any doubts about my choice of career, but I had constant doubts about my ability, yes.”

“I liked to read but, being a dancer, I didn't have a lot of time to read.”

“Even though I am a professional, and I know what the steps are, I don't quite know how I'm going to do them, because I haven't lived that moment yet. I always feel very insecure and I get very excited.”

“I used to love to play dress-up, where you get your mother's or your grandmother's dresses and high heels.”

“In fact, ballet companies did not exist in the Midwest when I was a child.”

“I had a wonderful childhood, coming from Cincinnati, and I think that it was great going into the life that I was going to have, where you have to start young as a dancer.”

“The steps must be second nature to me, so that the music seems to be drawing the steps out of me and I don't look as if I'm struggling to fit the steps to the music.”

“I liked Latin, I like languages, I liked all the myths, and the Roman tales that we were required to translate in Latin, and all these interesting people who were never quite what they thought they would be or seemed to be.”

“Of course, in the art class, I was the model.”

“I'm thought of as a cool, unemotional dancer, but inside I'm not.”

“But what was my motivation was music, and the fact that I love to move around. I'm always moving around.”

“I was very much of a tomboy.”

“I could work out a lot of my emotions by going to class and dancing.”