Top 55 Sylvie Guillem Quotes

Walking in the mountains helps me unwind, but it also reminds me in a painful way that the real beauty in life is nature and animals, and that the human race, in all its arrogance, is intent on destroying it.

When you start, you have no brain; you are a kid. It’s fine. But then I started to be scared. I was scared of judgment – not as a dancer, but as a person – and I was really uncomfortable with people. And it lasted for a very long time.

Working with a new style of choreography is always a period of adaptation.

I think the only regret I have is not to have opened my eyes sooner to aspects of life like the relationship of man with nature and animals.

A drop of water can’t stop a fire alone. But a drop of water, plus another one, plus another one, then you have the rain, and the rain can stop the fire.

I think it’s going to be the most difficult thing to do, to leave the stage. But if you have no lucidity about it, it’s even worse because you don’t see the negative side of you still being onstage.

For someone like me, who as a kid could not have two people in front of me without wanting to hide, to end up on stage with a lot of people in front of me, feeling good, it has to be a strange and special place.

Dancers, you know, they have pain everywhere: ankles in the morning, or back or neck or ribs or knees or the muscles. You are never free of pain, you know.

At school, either gymnastics or dance, it was the same. It gave me pleasure to move. And then, when I worked to achieve something new and out of the ordinary, it made me feel good. I felt I had surpassed myself.

Dancers should realise that they are really lucky. Dancing is not a job. It’s people who are chosen. And you must realise that you are chosen. Sometimes I see a performance that makes me really angry – I think, ‘Those people are lucky, and they don’t realise it.’

On stage, you can bring all those strong emotions that you don’t have the opportunity to live. You don’t want to die for love every day, but on stage, you can.

No one person can change the world, but one and one and one add up.

Between what I know I can do and want to achieve and what the audience expects, it’s a lot of pressure, and it’s always adding up.

I loved being at the Royal Ballet. Those choreographers, MacMillan and Ashton, they knew how to translate complicated life into choreography.

I am only interested in being famous for my dancing. For me, the concept of the sacred monster is only about the stage – it is not about image.

I cannot stand unfairness.

I like creation even if it is a bit difficult. It is always very exciting.

There are some ballets you can do for a long time. With others, you have to know when to stop. Some are very destructive. Forsythe’s choreography pushes dancers to the extreme. That’s why it’s best to vary. That way, you break your body a little bit in different places, but not a lot in one place.

There’s a picture of me as a little girl, and I’m waiting to go onstage, and I am biting the last bit of nail I have left on my finger.

The first time I took a plane to dance in front of an audience outside France was when I was in the Paris Opera Ballet School, and we flew to Japan.

It is in my nature to be a little shy. It takes time for me to talk to people and trust them.

I judge myself severely.

My mother really pushed me when I was young. I didn’t want to go to dance classes, but for some reason, when I was there, I didn’t want to come back.

As a child, I was afraid of everything. My parents were shy, the kind of people for whom it is an ordeal to go and buy some bread or whatever.

When I watch dance, most of the time I just see a potential that is not there at all. I just see they missed the point. They just give us a tiny bit of what it could be.

I’m not the kind of person who is on television and in magazines every five minutes selling clothes or washing machines.

I had never a thought of training to be a ballerina. I was a normal child. I never dreamed of the tutu.

I am very interested in nature.

I never dreamt of becoming a ballerina. I was just curious about it, it was something to explore.

I work hard to make a gift to the audience.

I’m not a social animal, and I had a reputation that came before me of being very difficult, of screaming at everybody, so people tended to keep their distance.

As much as I love my work, I do appreciate my rare days off. Even then, I can’t afford to let the dancing go. I need at least an hour just to keep in shape, so wherever I am in the world, I’ll grab the door or the furniture and do some serious exercise.

There are things I cannot do, costumes I cannot wear. When I have taken stands on things, it is because I have thought carefully about them.

My father had the curved feet, my mother the legs, so I am a bit of both.

Dancers are not like movie actresses. People look at our bodies, not our faces. They only recognise me when I sign my name on something and they say, ‘Ah yes, Sylvie.’

I was afraid when I came to the Royal Ballet that it would be easy to have everyone walking all over me if I didn’t stick up for myself.

I am stronger as a vegan than I ever was with meat and dairy.

I had no sense of having reached some goal because I was an etoile at the Paris Opera. My ambition, if you can call it that, was to discover and learn and be excited by what I was doing. If I didn’t have that, I would find it elsewhere.

Things that make me angry and sad, I cannot hide. It’s not because I want to be a rebel; it’s my instinct. When something touches me deeply, I really have to react.

I just don’t like authority. I do like authority when I respect it.

I’ve learned to listen to what’s going on with my body.

‘Swan Lake’ can be a nightmare. To make a ‘Swan Lake’ that is worth it, every single movement and breath has to be perfect. When you have an idea of ‘Swan Lake’ that is as high as that, it’s almost impossible.

Some choreographers have been cautious about working with me.

It is strange: I love to be in front of the audience, but I have this opposite side that is afraid of meeting people, that doesn’t want to talk. I feel it’s like having a little hard stone inside me of problems, doubts, and shyness.

The problems I had with the Paris Opera Ballet are a thing of the past.

When a real artist creates something, it has to be a necessity, the only way he can say something.

I was born with a different physical capacity to other people.

Oh, I could have done more. I refused a lot of ballets. I said, ‘No way, no way I’m going to do that.’

I am not nice. That has gotten me into a lot of trouble.

When you are young, you can do anything, everything, and nothing at the same time. You don’t have that kind of judgment; you just eat… like teenagers that need to feed. After a while, you know exactly what you are looking for, that sense of analysis comes to you when you start to use your brain.

Dancing pleases me. I hope I transmit that to others.

Everything I do, I try to make it the best I can. So I go my own way and give it all I have.

You don’t start by saying, ‘Well, am I better than her?’ Because that goes nowhere. Instead, all your work, your passion, your will has to go into what you do. And then if there is a result, if people like you, if you are a bit different, then fine.

If I do not feel comfortable, I will not look comfortable.

One has to learn to say, ‘Wait, there is a pain that is not logical. I will do a scan, and if there is something serious, I will stop immediately.’ If the body sends a message, you have to listen to it.