God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius.

A true artist should have no secrets. On the stage, you must be able to transmit every emotion to the spectator.

The right to happiness is fundamental.

Get my swan costume ready.

It is useless to dabble in beauty. One must be utterly devoted to beauty, with every nerve of the body.

If I can't dance then I'd rather be dead.

If I could have said it, I shouldn't have had to dance it.

To tend, unfailingly, unflinchingly, towards a goal, is the secret of success.

Dance is the purest expression of every emotion, earthly and spiritual

Where there is no heart there is no art.

Something will be offensive to someone in every book, so you've got to fight it.

It's not so much that I like him as a person God, but as a boy he's very handsome.

Ideas seem to come from everywhere - my life, everything I see, hear, and read, and most of all, from my imagination. I have a lot of imagination.

What's the point of thinking about how it's going to end when it's just the beginning?

Something awful happens to a person who grows up as a creative kid and suddenly finds no creative outlet as an adult.

I wanted to write honest books for kids because I didn't have those when I was a kid.

But if you aren't any religion, how are you going to know if you should join the Y or the Jewish Community Center?

I can't let safety and security become the focus of my life.

The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.