Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes

I don't go to a gym, I don't do yoga. I don't do personal training.

When a body moves, it's the most revealing thing. Dance for me a minute, and I'll tell you who you are.

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

When a dancer comes onstage, he is not just a blank slate that the choreographer has written on. Behind him he has all the decisions he has made in life. Each time, he has chosen, and in what he is onstage, you see the result of those choices. You are looking at the person he is, and the person who, at this point, he cannot help but be Exceptional dancers, in my experience, are also exceptional people, people with an attitude toward life, a kind of quest, and an internal quality. They know who they are, and they show this to you, willingly.

Be. Good. To yourself, to other people, to everything you do. It's a norm of life by which people should try to live. Don't waste time. Be interesting and interested.

The more injuries you get, the smarter you get.

No one is born a dancer. You have to want it more than anything.

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

Divinity of art, it's such a mystery. How to convince people that no matter how much money you can spend on education and art education especially, that it implants, it directs a young person for the rest of their lives, and always in the most humane and positive and dignified manner.

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

There comes a moment in a young artist's life when he knows he has to bring something to the stage from within himself. He has to put in something in order to be able to take something.

When I see people on the street, I look at how they walk. It's like a signature, a fingerprint.

It doesn't matter how high you lift your leg. The technique is about transparency, simplicity, making an earnest attempt.

Dance is an ephemeral, a fleeting art. To describe this momentum, every movement on stage, in words is virtually impossible.

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

Perfection is a theory. You cannot be a perfect human being, perfect artist. You cannot be a perfect husband, you cannot be a perfect father probably and probably I am not. But go through your daily routine with hope you will be a little better in all respects, and do something meaningful

I am not the first straight dancer or the last.

A country like Belgium, or socialist countries in central Europe spend more money on art education than the United States, which is a really puzzling thought.

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.

Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.

What do dancers think of Fred Astaire? It's no secret. We hate him. He gives us a complex because he's too perfect. His perfection is an absurdity. It's too hard to face.

To achieve some depth in your field requires a lot of sacrifices.

Working is living to me.

We're trying to stretch our muscles creatively. It gives us so much more freedom.

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.

Your body actually reminds you about your age and your injuries - the body has a stronger memory than your mind.

Just sit and open your eyes and open your heart. It's dance theater.

You see, dancers are quite mature people because they start performing so early. They become professionals when they start to take everyday classes.

The problem is not making up the steps but deciding which ones to keep.

I want to see people dance, and I would like to guess what kind of people they are. I don't want to know the recipe for their pasta.

I don't drink milk, and I don't eat bread, pasta or rice. But I eat a lot of meat, chicken, fish and salads.

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. In the '90s, it became kind of a hard and unwelcoming city in many ways. It became conservative, like the whole country.

I was very restless. I really wanted to be a part of a kind of a progressive society. I was fed up with these Communist doctrines and you were hassled all the time with members of the Party committee who were KGB, what you have to do, where in the West you can go or not to go.

If your only dance experience is the Nutcracker, it will be a shock; hopefully shocking in a good way.

My father was a Party member and he was a pretty high rank military officer under the colonel, junior colonel, I don't know the term. He was a total Stalinist. A bit with a streak of anti-Semitism and very shrewd man, a very kind of nervous man.

I've always said, 'I am a selector, I am not defector' - the first few phrases in English I learned. I said I hate 'defector'; something defective about the people. It's a bad word.

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.

My mother had a son from previous marriage and her husband died in Second World War.

I always had a kind of strange relationship with New York City, with total love affair in the beginning then retreat during the kind of conservatives of politics and real estate and business came, and then I am again kind of fighting for the justice to the city, to open the city for the artists.

People dance at any age.

Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun.

You don't measure life by receiving awards.

I don't try to dance better than anybody but myself.

You cannot dance physically certain things. But look at tango dancers or flamenco or Japanese classical theater. You can, if you're smart enough and you collaborate with the right choreographers, you could really dance your age.

Dancing is my obsession. My life.

Nobody is born a dancer.

I read Russian literature a lot.

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

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

When I'm alone, I work sometimes with music, sometimes without and sometimes just listening to NPR.