Most ballet teachers in the United States are terrible. If they were in medicine, everyone would be poisoned."

"The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener."

"God creates, I do not create. I assemble and I steal everywhere to do it from what I see, from what the dancers can do, from what others do."

First comes the sweat. Then comes the beauty if you're very lucky and have said your prayers.

"In my ballets, woman is first. Men are consorts. God made men to sing the praises of women. They are not equal to men: They are better."