Author Profile
Sylvie Guillem
1965 • French • Dancer
60
Total Quotes
Collected Meditations
Showing 60 quotesI'm not the kind of person who is on television and in magazines every five minutes selling clothes or washing machines.— Sylvie Guillem
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.— Sylvie Guillem
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.— Sylvie Guillem
A performance is like a boat. You really want it to arrive at port. So when something goes wrong and it doesn't get there, that touches me a lot.— Sylvie Guillem
I can't have friends in every port. I have to work very hard and be very clear about what I want to do. I cannot just swallow everything I am told. I have to decide what I want to become part of my luggage - and what I don't.— Sylvie Guillem
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.— Sylvie Guillem
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.— Sylvie Guillem
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.— Sylvie Guillem
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.— Sylvie Guillem
While I enjoy it, I will continue to go onstage. While I contribute something, fine. I don't want to be dragging my feet. I don't want to become pathetic, but I think I will be lucid enough. I'll know when to stop.— Sylvie Guillem
Most producers who want you to dance are not looking at the long term. They see their evenings, the box office, whom they have to repay, whatever.— Sylvie Guillem
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.— Sylvie Guillem