Top 35 Swan Quotes

To this day, people are still talking about the Coral Casino’s parties of the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s – complete with antidotes of Errol Flynn’s swan dives, Marlon Brando’s secret cigar smoking spots, and Ester Williams’ Aquacades.

I had daydreamed through many performances of Swan Lake, thinking the dancing tutus only ever conveyed one aspect of swans: their beauty gliding on water. I wondered what it would be like to use male dancers and bring out swans’ aggressive, muscular side.

Once you become a professional, to get through a ballet like ‘Swan Lake’ – four acts as the lead, changing character – the perseverance is incredible. It takes a lot to make it through and keep the same energy throughout the entire performance.

Having done so many versions, I never felt like an artist in ‘Swan Lake.’

People think I got rich out of ‘Swan ,but I didn’t at all: it’s the royalties from ‘Oliver’ and ‘My Fair Lady’ that have kept me going.

If troubled companies want to explain away 2008 as a ‘black swan,’ then someone should take responsibility for creating the oil slick that seems to have tarred the entire flock!

Jim Swan was my father, but Reg Barnes was my dad.

I guess because I came to it later in life, I realized, ‘Oh, going to a fashion show is like going to the opening of Degas at the Met or going to see Swan Lake.’

Slashing its way to the finish line, ‘Black Swan’ is the first ballet movie for highbrow horror fans for whom ballet itself signifies little to nothing. Those of us who know and love ballet can only look on it with a different kind of horror.

You don’t get ‘The Unfinished Swan’ or ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ or even Telltale’s ‘Walking Dead’ until you’ve sat through the long, linear infodumps of something like ‘Metal Gear Solid’.

In America, there’s a programme called ‘The Swan.’ They take 12 ugly people and call them ‘ugly ducklings.’ They spend six months and have everything done – plastic surgery, teeth, everything. And then they have this moment where their family is brought in, and they are revealed. It’s scary.

I am trained, and I did do ‘The Nutcracker’ in its right form, but at the time, they told me I was black and I’d never be in ‘Swan Lake.’ I went through all those prejudices in the ballet community, and I still emerged wonderfully trained and found my way to Alvin Ailey where there were familiar faces.

Sometimes I feel my arm is like a swan’s neck – so weak.

Last year, when ‘Black Swan,’ ‘True Grit’ and ‘King’s Speech’ all grossed over $100 million, it gave studios and independent financiers the confidence to make daring movies and not do the same old you-know-what.

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.

In traditional ‘Swan Lakes,’ it’s Prince Siegfried’s 21st-birthday celebration, his coming-of-age. The entire court, from his mother the Queen on down, is on hand.

I have had so many great moments, but I would have to say that dancing the Swan in ‘Swan Lake’ was such a unique and passionate experience for me. It was such bloody hard work, even at that very early age, that I would not want to try to replicate it again now.

When I saw the movie ‘Black Swan,’ I liked the darker aspect of it, the more dramatics, and that’s what I like to do for my programs.

There are no makeovers in my books. The ugly duckling does not become a beautiful swan. She becomes a confident duck able to take charge of her own life and problems.

In the heyday of the Oscars, there were electric sparks flying. When Cher went in her fabulous Bob Mackie dress and her Mohawk, and Bjoerk with her swan dress. Then we thought it was bad taste; now I think it should have been the best dress because she stood out.

I’m going to do ‘The Social Network Two: The Electric Boogaloo.’ And I have a part in ‘Beige Swan.’ I’m going to be the lead, but I don’t dance. I just do a lot of sitting down. It’s too tiring to get up and dance around. That should be coming out in 20-never.

I grew up in Newport, so I went to Boston growing up. The city holds a lot of special memories of my childhood, like the Swan Boats and Make Way for Ducklings.

The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death.

Would you just strap some toe shoes on and dance ‘Swan Lake?’ No. Would you just put a violin in your hand and – ? No. I felt that way about acting, and I was taught to feel that way. I didn’t come to it on my own.

I had seen the ballet of ‘Swan Lake’ as a child but it was as an adult, when I saw a production featuring Erik Bruhn, that I first noticed how significant a part the ever-present threat of violence played. This juxtaposition of great beauty and grace with a backdrop of pure evil stayed with me for years.

I think that Curt Swan, when he did Superman for the longest time, became the definitive Superman artist, and everybody got it. That made him very, very special in the annals of comic books.

What ‘War and Peace’ is to the novel and ‘Hamlet’ is to the theater, Swan Lake’ is to ballet – that is, the name which to many people stands for and sums up an art form.

You cannot dance an arabesque in ‘Swan Lake’ and ‘Nutcracker’ the same way.

What really matters is that ‘Black Swan’ deploys and exaggerates all the cliches of earlier ballet movies, especially ‘The Red Shoes,’ another tale of a ballerina driven mad and suicidal.

The silver swan, who, living had no note, When death approached unlocked her silent throat.

I think it requires a bit of honesty, Swan Lake.

I hated Matthew Bourne’s ‘Swan Lake’ when it first turned up, and then when it was televised, and then when it returned.

I think that all services will have downtime. No matter how much you prepare, have redundant systems, or audit, there will periodically be a black swan event that is completely unlike whatever you’ve experienced before. It even happens to Google!

I was in two episodes playing Christopher Reeve’s character’s emissary. They wanted to have my character announce Dr Swan’s death, which I thought was exploitative.

The very first film I ever saw was a pirate movie called ‘The Black Swan’ with Tyrone Power. And I thought that was great stuff. Of course, in those days, Technicolor was really Technicolor; there was no such thing as desaturation. Everybody looked super suntanned.