Usually, English personalities are difficult; they don't take criticism easily.

All ballet, all reading, all music. That was my world, my inner world.

It’s not possible to be perfect – you can always do something better. I’m never proud of what I’ve done. Sometimes, I’m not ashamed.

Dancers, many dancers today can do so much technically. You can give them steps that are complicated, then more complicated, pyrotechnical – and they can execute these steps to perfection. But to do simple steps with a pure classical line, that is truly difficult.

I don’t keep my secrets or my knowledge to myself.

People tell me I’m dancing better than ever. I don’t know what happened, but I have new enthusiasm and more endurance.

I travel like a gypsy, and I didn’t know how I could perform and be a mother.

I was born to be a ballerina – my physique, my spirit, my feeling for music. What I am can only be expressed in dance. I am an erotic woman and that’s what dance is.

Technical things are getting more mechanical. Take ‘Swan Lake,’ the Black Swan pas de deux. Now, my goodness, they’re turning not just 32 fouettes – but double or triple pirouettes.

The expression should come from within oneself, conveying the spiritual – something between earth and heaven. And if one runs, one should not seem to touch the ground.