Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes
"I kind of lost interest in the classical dance. I was very much interested in the modern choreography."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Dance, Interest)
"No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Business)
"It's what's left in life, to work with interesting people."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Work, Life, People)
"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."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Dance, Being, Company, Now, Years)
"I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. I played their game, pretending. You have to deal with, you know, party people, KGB. Horrifying."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Mother, People, Party, Russia)
"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."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Life, Dancing, Thinking, Want)
"I want to do exactly what I want to do. I'd rather gamble on the box office than beg for a grant."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Office, Want)
"Working is living to me."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Living)
"I think art education, especially in this country, which government pretty much ignores, is so important for young people."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Art, Government, Education, People, Country, Pretty)
"I really reject that kind of comparison that says, Oh, he is the best. This is the second best. There is no such thing."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
"People of art should never get married and have children, because it's a selfish experience."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Art, Experience, People, Children)
"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."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Friends)
"I have been very lucky to work in so many new ballets, but that is what a dancer's work is."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Work)
"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."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: People, Career)
"I get speeding ticket like everybody else. If the restaurant is full I'm waiting in line like everybody else."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Waiting)
"I cannot belong to a nonprofit organization because when you receive grants, you have to make such great compromises with your artistic plans."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
"Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Successful, Ballet, Public)
"Dancing is my obsession. My life."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Life, Dancing, Obsession)
"Dancers are stripped enough onstage. You don't have to know more about them than they've given you already."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
"Creative Artists Agency put together a project of extraordinary mediocrity and colossal stupidity. Otherwise, it was great."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Artists, Mediocrity, Project, Stupidity)
"Astaire was not a sexual animal, but he made his partners look so extraordinarily related to him."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
"To walk across the street is a risk."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Risk)
"You cannot be happy with your family while being personally unhappy with your work. It's a Catch-22 kind of thing."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Family, Work, Being)
"I feel very uneasy with a lot of aspects of the Russian life and the Russian people."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: Life, People)
"The Russian people get so insanely close to each other as friends. Their lives are interrelated so much on an everyday basis."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Related: People, Friends)