Quotes By Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

To walk across the street is a risk.

Dancers are stripped enough onstage. You don't have to know more about them than they've given you already.

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

Working is living to me.

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

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

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

It's weird when you see pieces of choreography that were done for you 15 or 20 years ago and now they are being done by another dance company.

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

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

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 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.

Astaire was not a sexual animal, but he made his partners look so extraordinarily related to him.

Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important.

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

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.

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

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

I am not the first straight dancer or the last.

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

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

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

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

I want to do exactly what I want to do. I'd rather gamble on the box office than beg for a grant.