These Ballerina quotes will inspire you. Ballerina, a woman who is a ballet dancer.
Below you will find a collection of motivating, knowledgeable, and encouraging Ballerina quotes, Ballerina sayings, and Ballerina proverbs.
Best Ballerina Quotes
- “I was a ballerina. I had to quit after I injured a groin muscle. It wasn’t mine.” ~ Rita Rudner
- “Looking back at it now, I really feel like it was a gift because I don’t know if I have the talent to become a prima ballerina. It’s such a hard job to have. I don’t have any regrets about it.” ~ Diane Kruger
- “When I grow up I am going to be a ballerina. I will be in Giselle. It will be so much fun being a ballerina.” ~ Karen Kain
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“I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.” ~ Beverly Cleary
- “I’ve been a ballerina since I was two, but I’ve always wanted to be an actress.” ~ Dakota Fanning
- “To become a classical ballerina, you have to move to New York when you’re 12 or 11 and that becomes your life. I just wanted to be good in my company in Charleston and I wanted it to always be part of my life.” ~ Jennifer Garner
- “And then you have the classical ballerinas, they’re like sopranos. Applied to the dance.” ~ Ninette de Valois , Ballerina quotes dance
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“Dancing is the poetry of the foot.” ~ John Dryden
- “I would like to continue acting. But also – if this is a dream world where everything could become true – I’d want to be a ballerina.” ~ Elle Fanning
- “Mother loved dance so much that she thought (ballerina) Margot Fonteyn should be the president.” ~ Chita Rivera
- “Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!” ~ Constanze Mozart
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“God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius.” ~ Anna Pavlova
- “Never be afraid to be a poppy in a field of daffodils.” ~ Michaela DePrince
- “Wouldn’t it be great if we all grew up to be what we wanted to be? The world would be full of nurses, firemen, and ballerinas.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Dance is not an exercise. Dance is an art.” ~ Alicia Alonso
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“You never advance without losing something en passant… you lose it because you’re paying so much attention to the new thing.” ~ Ninette de Valois
- “Having limits to push against is how you find out what you can do.” ~ Sylvie Guillem
- “As time goes on, all schools only get left alive if they have found something special themselves.” ~ Ninette de Valois
- “I don’t believe in “average people” doing anything [about the climate]. People outght to support mitigation and adaptation within their own line of work, no matter how un-average that is. I mean: if you’re a butcher, baker, ballerina, banker, or a plumber, envision yourself as the post-fossil-fuel version of yourself, and get right after it” ~ Bruce Bruce
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“You cannot create genius. All you can do is nurture it.” ~ Ninette de Valois
- “A ballerina’s life can be glorious. But it does not get any easier. I don’t think anyone must ever think about it getting easier.” ~ Alicia Markova
- “It’s very easy to become selfish and narrow-minded and see ballet as the only thing in life, but there’s lots more.” ~ Darcey Bussell
- “Some people even think that I’m still just not right for it [ballet]. And I think it’s shocking because they hear those words from critics saying I’m too bulky, I’m too busty. And then they meet me in person and they’re like, you look like a ballerina. And I think it’s just something maybe that I will never escape from, those people who are narrow-minded. But my mission, my voice, my story, my message, is not for them. And I think it’s more important to think of the people that I am influencing and helping to see a broader picture of what beauty is.” ~ Misty Copeland
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“A real ballerina must fill her space with her own personality.” ~ Natalia Makarova
- “In 22 years of acting, I’ve only done two movies where I, personally, kill people. The Coens called me the Spanish Ballerina on (the No Country For Old Men) set, because every time I had the gun, when they called cut, I’d give it back and say, ‘Take this s**t out of my hands!’ There were laughing, like they couldn’t believe I was supposed to be the villain.” ~ Javier Bardem
- “Acting is different from dance. The black-and-whiteness of dancing is mostly about the technical form – like, this is how people have been doing it for millions of years. You can’t let down those ballerinas who died a long time ago. My teacher will say, “This person would be ashamed!” And it’s like, oh God. But with acting, it’s different because people like something fresh. You can mix it up and create your own thing and it’s not necessarily wrong.” ~ Elle Fanning
- “I was born to be a ballerina – my physique, my spirit, my feeling for music. What I am can only be expressed in dance. I am an erotic woman and that’s what dance is.” ~ Natalia Makarova
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“I was not awesome at dancing. For a ballerina, I probably started too late. Plus I enjoyed entertaining people too much.” ~ Judy Greer
- “Contrary to vulgar legend the lives of great ballerinas are not entirely given up to a few minutes of graceful movement every night followed by champagne drunk out of their toeshoes till dawn, in the company of financiers … no, most of their time is spent in filthy rehearsal halls, inhaling dust, or else in class, daily, year in year out, practicing, practicing even after they are already prima ballerinas.” ~ Gore Vidal
- “A lot of people think, “Oh I’m going to eat whatever I want and then go to the gym.” And I’ve definitely been one of those people and it just doesn’t give me the results that I need to have the physique of a ballerina.” ~ Misty Copeland
- “I never knew I wanted to become a ballerina. I was discovered at the age of 13. I had a love for movement even though I had no exposure to dance other than what I saw in music videos, like hip-hop music videos. But I knew that I loved moving.” ~ Misty Copeland
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“At school I had a really hard time being a guitar player. It’s like being a male ballerina in a way. It’s not the norm.” ~ Orianthi
- “I just stay healthy all year round. I try to feel good in my skin. For me, I have trained in ballet my whole life so my body really feels best when I feel strong and tight and toned, and I think that comes from years and years of constant training as a ballerina. Leading up to the show, getting out there in your underwear, you just want to feel your best mainly in your head than more anything else. Obviously you want to feel good physically too, so it’s more just in your head, pushing yourself, approaching this challenge and taking the opportunity to push yourself a little further.” ~ Angelina Jolie
- “It should also be born in mind that the research on ‘movement’ and the dynamic outlook on the world, which were the basis of Futurist theory, in no way required one to paint nothing but speeding cars or ballerinas in action; for a person who is seated, or an inanimate object, though apparently static, could be considered dynamically and suggest dynamic forms. I may mention as an example the ‘Portrait of Madame S.’ (1912) and the ‘Seated Woman’ (1914).” ~ Gino Severini
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“I was a ballerina for 10 years growing up, but I stopped.” ~ Amy Smart
- “I think every woman in the world has to have a short black dress. That’s what I always wear if I’m really rushing and I don’t want to think. If you want to wear it during the day you can wear ballerina flats or sandals. And for the night you just put on some heels and and a necklace. That’s kind of the statement dress of Chanel as well. But Chanel is put on a necklace and a little hat and that would be perfect for Chanel.” ~ Alessandra Mastronardi
- “I have too much respect for ballet to dare practice it. I did ask ballerina Megan LeCrone to teach me jetés. She said that was impossible but did observe that I have great feet.” ~ Elad Lassry
- “I know there are a lot of eyes on me now from young girls, and it makes me so proud. The only Black woman examples aren’t Rihanna and Beyoncé. It makes me proud that I am a classical ballerina and they can look at me and see another way to succeed. That is setting a new standard.” ~ Misty Copeland
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“My mom always wanted me be a ballerina, and I was just adamant that I wanted to be a track star. I wanted nothing to do with ballet.” ~ Emayatzy E. Corinealdi
- “How difficult it is to exist, that we are athlete and artist. We have injuries. People don’t see the hard side of being a ballerina. They just see this beautiful and effortless thing, and they assume it’s easy and cute. I hate when people say it’s cute!” ~ Misty Copeland
- “I actually came to New York when I was 12 and did ballet school for a little while. I was being groomed to be professional, and a lot of the professors and teachers there were drawn to me and thought that I could become a professional ballerina.” ~ Mary Elizabeth Winstead
- “Around the corner [ of the Carnegie Delicatessen] is the Russian Tea Room, which is now out of business. Which is awful. I remember going in there and seeing the ballerinas trotting in there like they were prize horses, with their hair, their sunglasses. Really amazing. They were all White Russians. This is where [Leon] Theremin met a lot of people, and where the KGB eventually picked him up.” ~ Paul Laffoley
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“As a former ballerina, I can’t put down Maggie Shipstead’s new book, Astonish Me.” ~ Caitlin Moran
- “I have a sister who is a dancer and dance teacher. We grew up dancing together. I wanted to become a ballerina when I was a kid, so she and I were always at ballet conservatories and going to school with our hair in buns.” ~ Mary Elizabeth Winstead
- “When I was young I was soft spoken and a little bit timid and passive. My dream then was to be a ballerina or a figure skater – something very delicate.” ~ Evangeline Lilly
- “I was a ballerina for a good 12 years. When I was 15 I had to stop. It wasn’t a choice, it was an injury that prevented me from going forward in ballet unfortunately. Well, fortunately because I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing now if that had not happened.” ~ Kiesza
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“I have been a ballerina, a cheerleader and a sorority girl. I was the girliest girl alive.” ~ Koren Zailckas
- “I do think Under Armour is setting a new example for what a ballerina is, and that you can be feminine and an athlete and represent what a woman is at the same time.” ~ Misty Copeland
- “Maybe I’m seeing myself in a different way than the people in the audience see me, ’cause to me, I think I look like a ballerina and I feel like a ballerina. But maybe I’m not seeing what other people are seeing.” ~ Misty Copeland
- “[Princess Margaret] was loud, an extrovert, an exhibitionist, loved fashion, loved color, loved music, loved drama, loved the theater, wanted to be a ballerina or actress, was always the little one putting on the school plays, and [princess] Elizabeth reluctantly did it and got stage fright.” ~ Vanessa Kirby
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“I wanted to be a ballerina as a child – I had a tutu, and I used to stage my own ballets in our front room with my family as the audience.” ~ Lucy Hawking
- “When I was six I wanted to be a ballerina. By the time I was eight I was fairly sure this plan wasn’t panning out. I began aspiring to be an “Aquamaid” at a resort called “Aquarena Springs” in my hometown of San Marcos: Aquamaids got to wear mermaid tails and feed milk bottles underwater to Ralph the Swimming Pig for an audience submerged in a “submarine”.” ~ Elizabeth Crook
- “Pointe shoes are torture devices. I mean, ballerinas get used to it, but it was definitely a new experience for me. They feel medieval. I was very happy to stop wearing them.” ~ Natalie Portman
- “I haven’t come from the typical path or background of someone who would make it to this level as a ballerina. When it came to my childhood-growing up in a single-parent home, often struggling financially-my mother definitely instilled in me and my siblings this strength, this will, to just continue to survive and succeed.” ~ Misty Copeland
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“A ballerina takes steps given to her and makes them her own. Each individual brings something different to the same role.” ~ Maria Tallchief
- “Two sons, they’ll both be presidents after they win their Nobel Prizes. And the daughters, they’ll be prima ballerinas before they become the president of Princeton and start their Internet company. And I just started to think about What’s the conventional load of those expectations you carry around? You have to pull them out one by one and smash them in the corner. You realize the pile is quite high. But in a way, it becomes oddly liberating to do that.” ~ Ron Suskind
- “With ‘Black Swan,’ the ballerina saga flips its tiara and goes on a hallucinatory bender, a scary acid trip where transfiguration and disfiguration meet.” ~ James Wolcott
- “I wonder what it would be like if we all became what we wanted to be when we grew up? I mean, imagine a world filled with nothing but firemen, cowboys, nurses and ballerinas.” ~ Lily Tomlin
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“I always wanted to perform in some capacity since I was a kid – I was a ballerina, then a singer before acting.” ~ Mary Elizabeth Winstead
- “Above all, I wanted to be appreciated as a prima ballerina who happened to be a Native American, never as someone who was an American Indian ballerina.” ~ Maria Tallchief
- “When I was in school, I dreamed about becoming a psychiatrist or a ballerina. Like most girls I would dream about being a movie star too. But those dreams are the impossible kind, the kind you don’t really set your heart on.” ~ Sharon Tate
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“When one lifts a ballerina, it is not her weight but her nature that causes the problem.” ~ Maris Liepa
- “In what grade do we stop believing in ourselves? I asked. In what grade do we stop believing, period? I mean, SOMEONE has to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner. SOMEONE has to be a ballerina. Why not us?” ~ Chris Colfer
- “I think it was important that I learned to love to dance eventually for its own sake, as opposed to wanting to be a ballerina.” ~ Suzanne Farrell
- “It’s surprising to a lot of people because ballerinas look so long, but it’s more of a proportion thing. Their legs are long in proportion to their body but in reality they’re very tiny.” ~ Mary Elizabeth Winstead