Fred Astaire Quotes - Page 2

And that love that wrinkles your nose touches my foolish heart.

Of course, Ginger was able to accomplish sex through dance. We told more through our movements instead of the big clinch. We did it all in the dance.

There comes a day when people begin to say, 'Why doesn't that old duffer retire?' I want to get out while they're still saying Astaire is a hell of a dancer.

I often take a brand-new suit or hat and throw it up against the wall a few times to get that stiff, square newness out of it.

When working on my choreography I am not always receptive to outside suggestions or opinions. I believe that if you have something in mind in the way of a creation, such as a new dance, a sequence, or an effect, you are certain to come up with inaccurate criticism and damaging results if you go around asking for opinions.

I am bit sending messages with my feet. All I ever wanted was not to come up empty. I did it for the dough and the old applause.

Dancing is a sweat job.

I have never had anything that I can remember in the business - and that includes all the movies and the stage shows and everything - that I didn't enjoy. I didn't like some of the small-time vaudeville, because we weren't going on and getting better. Aside from that, I didn't dislike anything.

Oh, God! That boy moves in a very exceptional way. That's the greatest dancer of the century.

It's nice that all the composers have said that nobody interprets a lyric like Fred Astaire. But when it comes to selling records I was never worth anything particularly except as a collector's item.

But I do nothing that I don't like, such as "inventing" up to the arty or "down" to the corny. I happen to relish a certain type of corn. What I think is the really dangerous approach is the "let's be artistic" attitude. I know that artistry just happens.

Disco is just jitterbug.

I inherited the knowledge that sometimes (talents) not only skip a generation, but sometimes run screaming from it. Ironically, it was the singing non-ability that helped feed my love of laughter.

Slippery stages were the terror of my life.

People think I was born in top hat and tails.

The unpadded shoulders, the three-buttoned long and boxy coat, the too-short, thin pants, and the thin ties with striped buttoned shirts in dark colors-well, I suppose this may go very well with some personalities but it's not for me. To me, all such look like TV producers. Maybe they want to.

I don't remember anybody ever pointing me out as a dancing prodigy, but I played a not bad second base.

I don't like top hats, white ties, and tails.

I'm just a hoofer with a spare set of tails.

I don't want to be the oldest performer in captivity... I don't want to look like a little old man dancing out there.

We attend to his later performances as a dramatic actor with respect, but watching the nondancing, nonsinging Astaire is like watching a grounded skylark.

I had some ballet training but didn't like it. It was like a game to me.

Oh, there's no such thing as my favorite performance. I can't sit here today and look back, and say, Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any of the others. I just don't look back, period. When I finish with a project, I say 'all right, that's that. What's next?'