“Nothing is as important as dancing. . . . Better a fourth-rate dancer than a first-rate anything else.”
“Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.”
“never be a second-rate version of someone else, be a first-rate version of yourself”
“always be a first-rate version of your self instead of a second-rate version of someone else.”
“Nothing is more painful to me than the disdain with which people treat second-rate authors, as if there were room only for the first-raters.”
“I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.”