Suzanne Farrell Quotes

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

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

You're never more of an individual than when you're a happy team player.

I loved the stage not because it provided an escape from myself or my humdrum life but because when the curtain went up I could be whoever I wanted to be, and that was true freedom - to be myself.

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

The arts are the hospitals for our souls.

I set as my goal to be the best dancer I could be. Not the most famous, or the highest paid dancer, just the best I could be. Out of this discipline came great freedom and calm.

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.

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

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

After I stopped dancing, I was unable to listen to beautiful music.

When you are on stage in front of an audience, you want to engage the entire crowd. If a thousand people are in the theater, you need to dance a thousand different ways, not one-thousandth of a way.

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

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 have any doubts about my choice of career, but I had constant doubts about my ability, yes.

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.

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

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

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.

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

I was very much of a tomboy.

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

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

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

Treat each class as if it were your first.

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 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.

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

Eating a healthy diet is not just about eating a few special foods. There's a bigger picture. You need to practice moderation, eat a variety of foods, and get enough physical activity.

I learned to love dance for its own sake.

I think it was important that I learned to love to dance eventually for its own sake, as opposed to wanting to be a ballerina.

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

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

Good theater should always send people away feeling changed.

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

I was very happy that I was as normal as possible before I went into serious dance.

Do not brood. It makes the moment you are living in unavailable for learning and life.