Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes

The body cannot lie. You cannot be somebody else onstage, no matter how good of an actor or dancer or singer you are. When you open your arms, move your finger, the audience knows who you are, you know.

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 have the life of seven cats.

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

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

I hated life in the Soviet Union. You had to pretend something you didn't feel.

You cannot be happy with your family while being personally unhappy with your work. It's a Catch-22 kind of thing.

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.

You can be totally involved, you could admire just the shape of or you could be totally emotionally mushed up into the dance.

It's what's left in life, to work with interesting people.

I was always interested in photography and other forms of art.

Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun.

Acting is not my language at all.

Dancers are made, not born.

Now there is in a way a renaissance of modern dance - suddenly, it is more respected and discovered.

I have some Russian friends. But probably only 10 percent. I don't hang out usually in the big Russian communities in Brooklyn and New Jersey.

I would like to go and dance in Palestine one day, with great pleasure, great pleasure.

I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked.

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.

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

We lived, until I was 12 or so, in communal apartment with five different families and the same kitchen, in two little - my brother and me and my parents. It was hell, but it was a common thing. My father was not general or admiral, but he was colonel. He was teaching in military academy military topography.

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

I know when I am on stage and I'm kind of on the right track - hopefully most of the time. But a lot of time I'm not.

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

Soviet regime in a way deprived me from my childhood in my homeland, because my father was in military, and after the Yalta agreement he was sent to teach in military academy in Riga, and I was born then.

I cannot belong to a nonprofit organization because when you receive grants, you have to make such great compromises with your artistic plans.

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.

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.

I get speeding ticket like everybody else. If the restaurant is full I'm waiting in line like everybody else.

I like to go to anybody else's birthday, and if I'm invited I'm a good guest. But I never celebrate my birthdays. I really don't care.

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.

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

The Russian people get so insanely close to each other as friends. Their lives are interrelated so much on an everyday basis.

Dancing is my obsession. My life.

I feel very uneasy with a lot of aspects of the Russian life and the Russian people.

I have made mistakes.

My life has been immensely enriched by gay mentors, colleagues and friends, and any discrimination and persecution of gay people is unacceptable.

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

I cannot draw to save my life, and I'm not a big art scholar, but I worked with many designers throughout my career - in theater, in dance, costume designers, set designers, and I have a lot of artist friends and I do photography, and I think it's kind of in my life.

I really reject that kind of comparison that says, Oh, he is the best. This is the second best. There is no such thing.

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

In any art form, in Hollywood or in music, there is a handful of people who really, you know, move the envelope.

Dances have a second and third life. You feel they are never ready. They always have a chance for another life.

I have been very lucky to work in so many new ballets, but that is what a dancer's work is.

Although I don't gamble in life - I've never played poker - I do gamble on stage. I gamble with myself: 'Can I do this?'

In opera tradition, when opera die-hard fans, there is a replacement of singer or singer wasn't at his or hers vocal best, doing something, they boo. Especially now that they pay hundreds of dollars for the ticket.

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.

Love is not like a potato--you can't throw it out the window.

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

Creative Artists Agency put together a project of extraordinary mediocrity and colossal stupidity. Otherwise, it was great.

In the second part of life you get rid of stuff you've accumulated.

Running a company is pretty demanding.

What brought me to the theater, no matter you're a Jew or a Russian or Armenian or Latvian, are suddenly illuminated by stage light and one beautiful image of dance.

Choreographers use me as the old guy who still dances. Not that I put on white tights.

What people will do to get away from boredom!

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 spend at least a couple hours a day in the studio, every day, whether I'm dancing or not.

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

He is a male butterfly without the wings - the same kind of grace of a very young horse, so angular.

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

A theater is such a revealing form of art, such a transparent and good actors, they're such powerful individuals. I always kind of dreamt that one day I will open my mouth on stage.

You don't measure life by receiving awards.

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

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.

I never liked dance photography; it's very flat, and dance photography in the studio looks very contrived.

Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.

To walk across the street is a risk.

I think art education, especially in this country, which government pretty much ignores, is so important for young people.

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.

I'm an impatient person in many respects. I like to put myself in uncomfortable situations. It forces me to deliver.

Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals.

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

I was never like, "collect, collect," like people who go to auctions. I never spent a serious amount of time because I don't have any time!

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

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

I like to make my own mistakes.

Nothing is ever too expensive if it furthers the repertoire and artistic standards of a dance company.

People dance at any age.

The more injuries you get, the smarter you get.

Nobody else in the world has a form like the Native American musical, and Americans should be very proud.

I'm a product of Russian culture, but I never felt it was my country.

I've been hurt quite a few times.

I am not trying to do material which I cannot do full out.

No matter what I try to do or explore, my Kirov training, my expertise, and my background call me to return to dancing after all, because that's my real vocation, and I have to serve it.

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.

I - you know, I'm not an actor.

Working is living to me.

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.

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.