Quotes from Robert Gottlieb

Controversy sells books.

As for the once-revolutionary 'Agon,' after more than half a century, its lessons and revelations have been so absorbed into the language of ballet that it now seems almost conventional.

The best thing you can say about Hubbard Street is that if you were a dancer, this is a company you'd fight to get into.

What really matters is that 'Black Swan' deploys and exaggerates all the cliches of earlier ballet movies, especially 'The Red Shoes,' another tale of a ballerina driven mad and suicidal.

The mystery of Christopher Wheeldon deepens. Yes, he's the most talented of the younger ballet choreographers - indeed, where's the competition? Yes, he's particularly good at nurturing dancers and identifying their essential qualities.

We know that Diana Vishneva is a phenomenon of strength and style, and she certainly has earned the right to stretch her talents as best she can.

Choreographers, historically, are born, not made - their talents drive them to it.

Ballet in September used to be dead as a dodo. Now, with City Ballet's ingenious decision to give us four weeks of repertory in the early fall, having cut down on the relentlessly long spring season when dancers, critics and audiences droop on the vine, we wake up after the dog days of August with something to look at.

We see a new generation of Russian authors who are not divided from their Western contemporaries either culturally or philosophically.

There's no point pretending that all of Martha Graham's pieces are equally strong.

When December comes, can 'The Nutcracker' be far behind? No, it can't - not in America, anyway.

Audiences love Paul Taylor, and so do I. Not everything, and not always, but year in, year out, he gives me more concentrated pleasure than I get from any other dance company.

Once, Pina Bausch was about something, however disagreeable.

Ballerinas are often divided into three categories: jumpers, turners and balancers.

Most famous stage actors tactfully fade away.

Without a Prospero-Caliban relationship to balance the Prospero-Ariel one, 'The Tempest' loses much of its resonance.

I have fixed more sentences than most people have read in their lives.

But I had learned a lesson about the overwhelming need of narcissists to be in the right, and to punish those by whom they feel slighted.

Ho un amico che non ama Dickens. Non so se compatirlo o picchiarlo.

And even as the chariot of time hustles me along, I never forget that Bob Caro is coming up from behind with volume five of LBJ. I hope he makes it. I hope I make it.

You see, Miss Garbo, American men don't like fat women.

Nothing is real for me until I've read about it.

I've simply always lacked even the slightest religious impulse- when people talk about their faith, I can't connect with what they're talking about. This isn't a decision I came to, or a deep belief or principle; I'm just religion-deaf, the way tone-deaf people hear sounds and not music. I suppose my religion is reading.

Except physically, we know little more about Garbo than we know about Shakespeare.