“The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beauti...” — George Balanchine Quote

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

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.

One is born to be a great dancer.

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.

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

I suppose that I hope to change the history of ballet.

It's going to take a while before we see a real shift in the students and the dancers that are going into professional companies because it takes so many years of training, but I do think that there's a new crop of dancers, of minority dancers that are entering into the ballet world.

I took ballet when I was eight, like a lot of other people.

Ballet can be grueling, for sure, but it gives you a certain discipline.

I cherish the ballets made for myself by Mr. Balanchine. He never lost his temper. He was quiet, humble, the genius of the 20th century.