Creativity is an act of defiance.

In every situation, at the beginning or end of the workday, you have a choice. You can look back or you can look forward. My advice: look forward. Always think about the next day. Don't go into the studio thinking, 'Hmmm, let's see what I was doing yesterday?' It takes more energy to twist yourself around and look back that it does to face forward.

If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.

Dance is the most fundamental of all art forms.

Confidence is a trait that has to be earned honestly and refreshed constantly; you have to work as hard to protect your skills as you did to develop them. . . The one thing that creative souls around the world have in common is that they all have to practice to maintain their skills. Art is a vast democracy of habit.

if you want to create art, you'd best have a deep belief in yourself and no ulterior motives.

There are so few people who can really take hold of art and sort of eat and chew it up. Somehow it's got to be held special, sacred in a corner, and if you don't do the same thing with it, if you're not equally reverential, serious, and pompous about it, well, then you're not a great artist. Who needs that?

When I was a kid, toe dancing and toe shoes had a meaning in our culture as a serious kind of art.

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.