Quotes from Sylvie Guillem

When a real artist creates something, it has to be a necessity, the only way he can say something.

Dancers, you know, they have pain everywhere: ankles in the morning, or back or neck or ribs or knees or the muscles. You are never free of pain, you know.

You don't start by saying, 'Well, am I better than her?' Because that goes nowhere. Instead, all your work, your passion, your will has to go into what you do. And then if there is a result, if people like you, if you are a bit different, then fine.

It is strange: I love to be in front of the audience, but I have this opposite side that is afraid of meeting people, that doesn't want to talk. I feel it's like having a little hard stone inside me of problems, doubts, and shyness.

If we keep on destroying fish, there won't be any left. If the oceans die, we all die. It's as simple as that.

There's a picture of me as a little girl, and I'm waiting to go onstage, and I am biting the last bit of nail I have left on my finger.

I think it's going to be the most difficult thing to do, to leave the stage. But if you have no lucidity about it, it's even worse because you don't see the negative side of you still being onstage.

As a professional ballet dancer, I have to accept that weekends are about work. The notion of a leisurely break with all the buzz and excitement of a Friday night simply doesn't exist for me.

It would be nice to wake up and be able to walk to the bathroom. But even when I was 20 and at the Paris Opera, I had to crawl down the stairs; it is only when I start to work and stretch that my body begins to recover again.

I have a strong sense of injustice and not admitting things just because that is the way someone says it should be. I need to understand. I need to agree.

I am stronger as a vegan than I ever was with meat and dairy.

There is a false idea that I am stubborn and do only what I want, but really, I am like a sponge.

I do not want an animal to die for me.

When you start, you have no brain; you are a kid. It's fine. But then I started to be scared. I was scared of judgment - not as a dancer, but as a person - and I was really uncomfortable with people. And it lasted for a very long time.

The stage is like a magnifier of thoughts and emotion and vibration; that's what the stage is incredible for because it makes you live other lives. It makes you experience other emotions. It makes you feel more beautiful or more alone or more angry. It makes you feel much more, more, more.

If an idea comes and I am attracted to it, I will do it.

I just don't like authority. I do like authority when I respect it.

I am not a completely stubborn person. But I have views.

My father had the curved feet, my mother the legs, so I am a bit of both.

When I am on stage, I feel completely free and just want to let go.