Dancers From The United States

"Your body doesn't have the energy it needs to filter toxins, causing it to believe that it has an infection, so it's always inflamed. You create antibodies that attack your glands, so you have to eat clean."

"There's no one way to be black. I'm black the way I know how to be. You have no idea who I am. I am black. I'm raising black men. Don't you ever think you can look at me and address me with such disdain."

"I’m surprised by the success of anything I do, but it’s gratifying when the public approves."

"I actually go, 'Wow! How lucky can a girl get?"

"The G-string, which was often sequined and rhinestoned, was a cultural marker of glamorous erotic entertainment. Non-professionals wore them for costumes or naughty private play, but generally not as underwear until Frederick's of Hollywood began to make a more wearable version of them available as underwear through their catalogs and stores."

"Women were my obvious focus…because it is not always easy having power and being female…That’s the way it was. It wasn’t that all men were terrible or that the situation was unbearable. It was a cultural problem."

"Before you go to bed, think of three things that went well today. I don’t care if it’s a little crazy thing – it doesn’t matter…Take some music you love and if you can’t dance, go do 10 minutes of jumping jacks. Get yourself all cheered up."

"Starting out as a dancer gave me an aspect of mindfulness that I didn’t even realise that I was getting…because to dance is to be aware of every piece of your body while you’re moving. It’s like a meditation unto itself."

"I believe you have to start with a craft; you don’t just start with a dream. You’ve got to put a lot of work in. If you want to pursue acting, then you go to acting class. If you want to be a dancer, then you learn to dance, which is what I did. If you want to be a ventriloquist or join the circus … When you’re young, you start looking at what you want to do—not just who you want to be, but what you want to do. And I think the tenacity to say, “I’m going to perfect that,” is the beginning of a work ethic..."

"My sense of liberation and the freedom to speak the way I want to and to feel solid in my shoes was getting stronger and stronger. That’s what helps me move through other people’s perceptions of how I should or should not be liberated. I would never listen to those rules. Don’t tell me I can’t do that. Watch me. Don’t tell me I can’t direct this movie. Watch me…"

"Kids listen to kids. If you have a platform, why not use it to speak about things that can help other people?"

"I have such a vivid memory of listening to this song ("Brooklyn Baby" by Lana Del Rey) with the top down of my dads 1960s car and just feeling like I was in a music video or something. My hair was blowing in the wind and all I could see was the palm trees above me. I seriously had never felt cooler in my life."

"It's been about two years. More energy, my face clears up, weight falls off. I lost, like, 30 pounds! … Initially, I watched the documentary ‘What the Health’, and to put it frankly, it p***ed me off. It really did. I was like, let me get this straight: The person giving you the disease and the person fighting the disease are in bed together? To hell with y'all. Out of spite, I went vegan because I was like, Y'all don't care."

"If someone is a friend of mine, they’re going to love animals. It’s kind of a prerequisite. … [The biggest misunderstanding about pets is] that a pet should instantly fit into your home/lifestyle and automatically have good behavior. While I think having a pet can be relatively easy and absolutely rewarding, pets definitely require responsibly and involvement. … If for some reason I had to go into an underground bunker because people all over the world were turning into zombies, but I couldn’t take my dog, well, then I’d have to take my chances with the zombies."

"It never occurred to me when I was 10 years old that I was going to end up representing an entire—not just community, but nationality. That’s not something I ever thought of, because I wasn’t a political person then. But I was forced to become one because of the circumstances. At some point, I discovered that a lot of people were suffering unnecessarily. I really started to understand that everyone has a responsibility to others and to a community, that you are not the only person in the world you simply represent, whether you like it or not."

"The first time I saw myself on a movie screen, I was disappointed because I didn’t look outrageously beautiful. It’s not that I looked ugly. It’s just that I had these funny notions of how you’re supposed to look when you’re in the movies. You’re supposed to look like Elizabeth Taylor, who was my idol. Guess what? I didn’t look like her. And my voice sounded very high, which indeed it was. So I was thrilled and at the same time, I was somewhat disappointed. But I thought, I can work on my voice. I can make that better."

"I've always had this image of this strong, sprightly person who is undaunted by anything; on the contrary, I was one of the shyest, most unsure people you ever met in your life. But I have one very specific quality: I'm plucky. I really am. I would say that's a perfect description of my personality. I am able to get up and dust myself off and keep moving forward. I'm very stubborn. I never knew that about myself. But I realize how stubborn I am when I look at all the terrible things that happened to me and how I just get up and keep going."

"You are perceiving that Rita Moreno I presented to the world. What was I gonna do, say: ‘Really, I’m a weak person’? No, that was the persona. I am now that person, but it took me a very, very long time to become her."

"It was my choice, because I was being offered such crappy stuff. I was only offered gang movies on a way lesser scale and it was like the same fucking battle again. I couldn’t believe it. And it broke my heart. It. Absolutely. Broke. My. Heart. I thought: ‘I’ll wait for something better,’ and something better kept not coming. It was horrific."

"What I say to my gente [people] is to hang on, and to remember who they are, be proud of who they are, and keep talking. And keep complaining, and just don't ever — don't give up. That's always been my motto anyway. My motto has always been "persevere" — perseverancia. And that's what we need to do."

"I was told I was crying all the time I was unconscious…It wasn’t done for drama, that’s for sure. What I really wanted to do was kill the bad Rita who was always getting me in trouble, but it turned out if you’re going to kill the bad Rita, you’re also going to kill the good one."

"I think part of the reason is because, unlike the black community, we don’t mainly come from America. We come from all kinds of countries and we’ve siloed ourselves rather than supporting each other, as we should have. We still think of ourselves as Argentinian or Puerto Rican or Mexican rather than Hispanic. Until we get over that and become one big wonderful community, we’re still going to have problems."

"He didn’t like the raucous side of me and I love that side of me. I think I’m funny as hell and I think I’m cute and I think I’m mischievous. I know I’m mischievous. And that’s the kind of thing he discouraged, and that makes me very sad, because he was missing out on something pretty wonderful about me…You know, I think I owe an enormous debt to psychotherapy. Without that, I wouldn’t be the Rita you know and love."

"I have a great sense of humor about aging, and I think I’m one of the funniest people I know when it comes to aging, because I misplace stuff and I drive everyone crazy looking for the house keys or something. Once, I couldn’t find my purse, and I upended the car, upended the house. I could not find that fucking purse. And then two days ago, I opened the cabinet in the kitchen where all the doggie stuff is, and guess what? I had put it in there. I started laughing so hard, I nearly peed. I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought, You silly bitch."

"I think that some people are genetically just strong. I really believe that my mom was like that. On the other hand, maybe you're forced to be that way because you realize you're either going to sink or swim, and the choice you make determines the kind of person you become…"

"It got me roles. And you know, for a while, that was wonderful — I was in the movies. But after a while I began to understand that it was really very demeaning. And I began to feel more and more and more diminished. I was already very unsure of myself anyway, because when I was a very young girl in New York City I ran into an awful lot of racial bias, and I got called some pretty nasty names, like 'spic' and — all the words you heard in West Side Story came directly from the streets — 'garlic mouth,' 'pierced ear.' So by the time I was doing those kind of roles — for a living, practically, in Hollywood — I was beginning to feel pretty bad about myself."

"If you have been traumatised from the time you were a child to believe you were a ‘spic’, that you were a garlic-mouth, that you are not worthy, it takes a long time to get rid of that. That’s why therapy so often takes so long, because you’re trying to get rid of that trash before you can deal with the you that wants to get better. I went into therapy wanting to get better, knowing that in some way I had a sickness. And the sickness was Rita hates Rita."

"I like working with grown-up dancers much better, because there’s somebody to talk to at the airport when you’re delayed. In the middle of class, they hate me for it, but I always say, ‘What are you reading right now?’ or ‘Did you see this movie?’ or ‘Who wrote that piece of music?’ I do little quizzes to keep people involved and not just to become robotic dancing machines, because I hate to watch that."

"The culture has changed, and times have changed, you know, the whole thing about being queer has changed entirely. So then I was the bad boy, a self-proclaimed homosexual choreographer. In the early ‘80s I said I was gay all the time because it was important politically."

"I don’t, believe it or not. I don’t miss the roar of the crowd. I still get that when I take a bow, if I milk it right. I’m not regretful, but I’m envious sometimes."

"I believe firmly in that theory that the stuff you learn when you’re very, very young, it sort of stays. The very first dance I made up that was any good, I was about 15, and I’ve been wringing changes out of that ever since. That’s interesting to me. That’s not death. It’s style or something."

"I guess once I finish a dance and release it to the public and we're performing it, I'm kind of done... Well, I love watching it, and I love watching other people's work too if it's really good and interesting. But you know, the most exciting part is also very often the most frustrating part: trying to finish something or get it just right or get across something that I'm not sure what it is until it happens.”"

"I was an "other," as people call now. But you know, everybody's other than everybody else...I used what was called the "sissy test" — you know, look at your fingernails; if you do it a certain way, you're a butch or a femme. But it turned into a little bit of a look back when I made up a dance based on the quotidian humiliations of junior high school — that age, that degree of development and that confusion and annoyance that happens."

"If that means that it's not for everybody, then yes. "Elitist" doesn't need to mean wealthy and conservative; it can also mean specialised and rarefied, and that's no bad thing."

"Technique without art is shallow and doomed. Art without technique is insulting."

"Yeah, it certainly is cum alright, at least it smells like it."

"I want to tell all my fans at Nico Nico to live their life without any judgments, and be adventurous. When opportunity comes, put work into your faith, and don't be afraid to go out and live life. Whatever your sexuality is - gay, straight, boy, girl - go have fun. That's what life is all about. And live a life of yugamineena."

"You got me mad now"

"What the hell do you boys think that this here is, fucking Fairyland? Pulling on your wee-wees like a pack of fucking fruits?"

"Let us remember these timeless words: Ass♂we♂can."

"‘Be vegan’ and ‘make peace’ are fantastic four words to think about in daily life and in everything we do. Being vegan means to me that we not only eat healthy foods, but we have respect for all life on the planet. And that’s important. And ‘make peace,’ that’s important as well. Peace really has to start with us, individually. And then hopefully it will spread, and we emit that, so to speak, in our behavior in general and the things we do, whether it is private or work."

"My personal way to be a hero... is to be a vegetarian."

"I enjoyed the comedies with Alec Guinness, and I had a real great time with Peter Ustinov in Hotel Sahara. I found I had the ability to do comedy. My timing was really inborn."

"Early one morning she answered the telephone. . . . "Yvonne?" asked the voice on the other end of the phone. It was her agent. "You know about Ten Commandments, don’t you?" "Know what?" she asked. Of course, she knew about the picture. Everyone in town did. "What about it?" she asked. "Great news," the voice sounded breathless. "The part of Sephora—Moses' wife. Until today, that part was wide open. Not any more. Guess who’s got it? You! DeMille wants De Carlo!" Not until weeks later, in conversations with Mr. DeMille, did Yvonne find out how, without asking, she had won this important role. DeMille was in the process of casting and was considering Nina Foch for the role of Moses' Egyptian foster mother. Miss Foch's agent suggested that he see an earlier Foch movie called Sombrero. A date was set and DeMille, with a few of his staff, was shown the film in the studio screening room. Foch was fine, he commented to an assistant. "Cast her." And he started to rise to return to his office. Suddenly, looking up he saw a tormented, sadly beautiful face, veiled in a Mexican shawl, flash upon the screen. Sinking back into his chair, he watched the scene through. When it was over, he had reached another decision. "Get me that face," he ordered. "That’s Sephora.""

"Miss De Carlo photographs beautifully in color and in black and white film. She is a fine actress, an excellent dancer and singer. It is very unusual to find so much talent in one person."

"One critic called me one of the most magnificent resources Canada has allowed to escape to the United States. Because I was born and raised in Vancouver and lived up there until I was 17. My kids sons Bruce and Michael are, of course, American citizens. But not me. I defiantly refuse to change."

"You want to know about the title, right. The most beautiful girl in the world. . . It was a straight publicity thing but it ballooned. Of course, I never could wear blue jeans to the market after that. I had a reputation to uphold."

"My mother was the shaping force in my life. Don't ask me how but she always had money for my dancing lessons. She was convinced I was going to be somebody."

"I played so many oriental princesses and cowtown saloon madams after that I lost count. I broke in all the new actors, to use a phrase. I acted with Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis before they became big names."

"Baby, I've never been drunk in public and I never run around with men half my age. The dames I started out with are all batty today. They had their looks and nothing more and now they think they're finished."