I'll never starve.

Kids talk to me and say they want to do musicals again because they’ve studied the tapes of the old films. We didn’t have that. We thought once we had made it, even on film, it was gone except for the archives.

There is a strange sort of reasoning in Hollywood that musicals are less worthy of Academy consideration than dramas. It’s a form of snobbism, the same sort that perpetuates the idea that drama is more deserving of Awards than comedy.

I’d studied dance in Chicago every summer and taught it all winter, and I was well-rounded. I wasn’t worried about getting a job on Broadway. In fact, I got one the first week.

I wanted to invent some kind of American dance that was danced to the music that I grew up on: Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart and Irving Berlin. So I evolved a style that certainly didn’t catch on right away – but I had some good mentors in New York who encouraged me.

There’s nothing revolutionary about Saturday Night Fever. You can see the same kind of movement at your local disco.

I never wanted to be a dancer. It’s true! I wanted to be a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

I think dancing is a man’s game and if he does it well he does it better than a woman.

If Fred Astaire is the Cary Grant of dance, I’m the Marlon Brando.

You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams. And I know if I can make you smile by jumping over a couple of couches or running through a rainstorm, then I’ll be very glad to be a song and dance man.