To Dance Is To Live.

To Express What Is The Most Moral, Healthful And Beautiful In Art This Is The Mission Of The Dancer, And To This I Dedicate My Life.

Before I Was Born My Mother Was In Great Agony Of Spirit And In A Tragic Situation. She Could Take No Food Except Iced Oysters And Champagne. If People Ask Me When I Began To Dance, I Reply 'in My Mother's Womb, Probably As A Result Of The Oysters And Champagne.'

It Has Taken Me Years Of Struggle, Hard Work And Research To Learn To Make One Simple Gesture, And I Know Enough About The Art Of Writing To Realize That It Would Take As Many Years Of Concentrated Effort To Write One Simple, Beautiful Sentence.

Any Woman Or Man Who Would Write The Truth Of Their Lives Would Write A Great Work. But No One Has Dared To Write The Truth Of Their Lives.

A Dancer, If She Is Great, Can Give To The People Something That They Can Carry With Them Forever. They Can Never Forget It, And It Has Changed Them, Though They May Never Know It.