I really reject that kind of comparison that says, Oh, he is the best. This is the second best. There is no such thing.

I get speeding ticket like everybody else. If the restaurant is full I'm waiting in line like everybody else.

To achieve some depth in your field requires a lot of sacrifices. Want to or not, you're thinking about what you're doing in life-in my case, dancing.

I cannot belong to a nonprofit organization because when you receive grants, you have to make such great compromises with your artistic plans.

I am not the first straight dancer or the last.

It's weird when you see pieces of choreography that were done for you 15 or 20 years ago and now they are being done by another dance company.

In '74 it was really a very gloomy atmosphere, I would say, to put it mildly.

I was very restless. I really wanted to be a part of a kind of a progressive society. I was fed up with these Communist doctrines and you were hassled all the time with members of the Party committee who were KGB, what you have to do, where in the West you can go or not to go.

My father was a Party member and he was a pretty high rank military officer under the colonel, junior colonel, I don't know the term. He was a total Stalinist. A bit with a streak of anti-Semitism and very shrewd man, a very kind of nervous man.

Running a company is pretty demanding.

Obviously, the young dancers lack a certain air of maturity.

I am teaching more. That is what I do best.

I have made mistakes.

I don't want to do anything Freudian.

Your heart is very much connected to your mind.

I miss horribly those couple of hours before the performance when you get into the theater and you see people.

Dances have a second and third life. You feel they are never ready. They always have a chance for another life.

My mother had a son from previous marriage and her husband died in Second World War.

I have the life of seven cats.

I've been hurt quite a few times.

I am not trying to do material which I cannot do full out.

I would like to go and dance in Palestine one day, with great pleasure, great pleasure.

I've always said, 'I am a selector, I am not defector' - the first few phrases in English I learned. I said I hate 'defector'; something defective about the people. It's a bad word.

A country like Belgium, or socialist countries in central Europe spend more money on art education than the United States, which is a really puzzling thought.

I never liked dance photography; it's very flat, and dance photography in the studio looks very contrived.

I was always interested in photography and other forms of art.

I don't go to a gym, I don't do yoga. I don't do personal training.

When I'm alone, I work sometimes with music, sometimes without and sometimes just listening to NPR.

Nothing is ever too expensive if it furthers the repertoire and artistic standards of a dance company.

Nobody else in the world has a form like the Native American musical, and Americans should be very proud.

I don't see in myself any perfection.

I know when I am on stage and I'm kind of on the right track - hopefully most of the time. But a lot of time I'm not.

Although I don't gamble in life - I've never played poker - I do gamble on stage. I gamble with myself: 'Can I do this?'

Now there is in a way a renaissance of modern dance - suddenly, it is more respected and discovered.

In opera tradition, when opera die-hard fans, there is a replacement of singer or singer wasn't at his or hers vocal best, doing something, they boo. Especially now that they pay hundreds of dollars for the ticket.

You see, dancers are quite mature people because they start performing so early. They become professionals when they start to take everyday classes.

I fell in love with New York.

I like to make my own mistakes.

I think I got disappointed over the years about New York, about the States. You know, sometimes you go and visit Europe and see good old socialism in its good part! You see public concern about art, and young people's participation and young faces in the audience.

We lived, until I was 12 or so, in communal apartment with five different families and the same kitchen, in two little - my brother and me and my parents. It was hell, but it was a common thing. My father was not general or admiral, but he was colonel. He was teaching in military academy military topography.

I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked.

I fell in love with New York. It was like every human being, like any relationship. When I was a young New Yorker, it was one city. When I was a grown man, it was another city. I worked with many dance organizations and many wonderful people.

I cannot draw to save my life, and I'm not a big art scholar, but I worked with many designers throughout my career - in theater, in dance, costume designers, set designers, and I have a lot of artist friends and I do photography, and I think it's kind of in my life.

Film, theater and television always kind of scared me. I don't ever seriously think of myself as an actor at all, and I don't plan any film career or television career.

Choreographers use me as the old guy who still dances. Not that I put on white tights.