My mother was a dominant force in my life. She had a very specific idea about education, which was: you should know everything about everything. It was quite simple. There was no exclusivity, and there really was no judgment.

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.

What we want from modern dance is courage and audacity.

Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.

I always tell students that you've got to be practical. You do not need a dream. You need a purpose, something you can wake up to in the morning when the dream is dissipated.

I feel I can handle the architecture of dance as well as anybody.

There's the tradition of the 19th-century ballets, and the 20th century has had a difficult time with that tradition. And it's had a difficult time with many components of the Romantic imagination because of modernism.

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.

Everyone has a talent. It's simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck.

The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts.

No artist is well served in thinking what will happen to their works. The best one can hope is that they'll enter the mainstream, and people will pull bits and pieces from them.