“No one is born a dancer. You have to want it more than anything.”

“I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to to dance better than myself.”

“I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. I played their game, pretending. You have to deal with, you know, party people, KGB. Horrifying.”

“The problem is not making up the steps but deciding which ones to keep.”

“I hated life in the Soviet Union. You had to pretend something you didn't feel.”

“I have some Russian friends. But probably only 10 percent. I don't hang out usually in the big Russian communities in Brooklyn and New Jersey.”

“Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals.”