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“The practice mirror is to be used for the correction of faults, not for a love affair, and the figure you watch should not become your dearest friend.”
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“But remember that intent is everything. One does not just jump, one lifts into the air, one rises. In the same way the lifted leg of an arabesque becomes a wing, and not a mechanical leverage like a raised trap door. This is the precise difference between dancing and acrobatics. The dancer tries to express something; the acrobat merely pulls, raises, stretches and grinds. The acrobat is lost in a web of muscles the dancer is all but invisible in projected idea.”
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“To make up a dance, I still need, as I needed then, a pot of tea, walking space, privacy and an idea.”
Source : Agnes De Mille (2015). “Dance to the Piper”, p.233, New York Review of Books
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“Is not sorrow, all sorrow, selfish?”
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“You are the patient one, Mademoiselle,' said Poirot to Miss Debenham. She shrugged her shoulders slightly. 'What else can one do?' You are a philosopher, Mademoiselle.' That implies a detached attitude. I think my attitude is more selfish. I have learned to save myself useless emotion.”
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“In swimming at my level it's about control of the small movements. A good ballet dancer floats across the stage, the best sprinters virtually abolish gravity. All motion occurs in the right direction.”
Source : "With Alexander Dale Oen's sudden death, Norway lost a hero" by Andy Bull, www.theguardian.com. June 2, 2012. 
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“Be IN it. Get drunk in the moment.”
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“I thought 'Out of Africa' would be a beautiful ballet.”
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“Coming near him like a ballet dancer she took a leap towards him, and he, frightened by her vehemence, and fearing that she would crash against him, instinctively became absolutely rigid, and she felt herself embracing a statue.”
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“Ballet is ultimately a logical technique; it favors the shortest, most efficient route from one position into another. This factor gives an aesthetic clarity to all motions.”
Source : Anna Paskevska, Chair of the Dance Department Anna Paskevska (2005). “Ballet Beyond Tradition”, p.50, Routledge
