Quotes from George Balanchine

Your eyes is camera and your brain is a file cabinet.

The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye. It's the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician

I don't want people who want to dance. I want people who have to dance.

What are you waiting for? Now is all there is!

I am a choreographer. A choreographer is a poet. I do not create. God creates. I assemble, and I will steal from everywhere to do it.

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.

Put a man and a girl on stage and there is already a story; a man and two girls, there's already a plot.

The woman's function is to fascinate men.

Someone once said that dancers work just as hard as policeman, always alert, always tense. But I don't agree with that because policeman don't have to look beautiful at the same time.

The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye. It's the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician.