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Margot Fonteyn
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“I think perhaps I've learned to be myself. I have a theory that all artists who would be important — painters and writers — must learn to be themselves. It takes a very long time.”
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“... when I left the stage door and sought my orientation among real people I was in a wilderness of unpredictables in an unchoreographed world.”
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“The one important thing I have learnt over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking oneself seriously. The first is imperative and the second disastrous.”
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“Traveling carries with it the curse of being at home everywhere and yet nowhere, for wherever one is some part of oneself remains on another continent.”
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“Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.”
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“... the first night is the worst possible time to make a hard and fast criticism: the baby never looks its best on the day it is born.”
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“If I have learnt anything it is that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return?”
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“The world of dance is a natural world from which civilization has divorced many of us by making it appear remote — something reserved for the few who have a special talent.”
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“... generally speaking, we are all happier when we are still striving for achievement than when the prize is in our hands.”
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“'Jumping for joy' is a very basic human reaction, and a child skipping down the street is simply an untrained dancer.”
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“Ballet is more than a profession — it is a way of life.”
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“Dancers are both athletes and artists ...”
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“There is no way anything of value can be done without some framework. It might well be that the framework is discarded or the rules opposed; that is not important. What is essential is that they exist so that one knows when one is in opposition to them.”
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“I have never wanted to live to be old, so old I'd run out of friends or money.”
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“The essential thing about mothers — one needs to know that they are there, particularly at that age when, paradoxically, one is trying so hard to break away from parental influence.”
Margot Fonteyn, English prima ballerina
(1919 - 1991)
Real name: Margaret (Peggy) Hookham.