“The finest chroniclers of the great and the near-great have often been courtiers - the Duc de Saint-Simon, for instance, or Lady Murasaki.”
“Twyla Tharp set her sights on ballet, and ballet, hungry for major talent, succumbed.”
“Wayne McGregor's 'Dyad 1929' is a good example of this capable British choreographer's work.”
“Without a Prospero-Caliban relationship to balance the Prospero-Ariel one, 'The Tempest' loses much of its resonance.”
“Ballet in September used to be dead as a dodo. Now, with City Ballet's ingenious decision to give us four weeks of repertory in the early fall, having cut down on the relentlessly long spring season when dancers, critics and audiences droop on the vine, we wake up after the dog days of August with something to look at.”
“Paris, as always, is swarming with Americans, and these days, it's also swarming with hamburgers. Oddly, though, it's not typically the Americans who are pursuing the perfect burger on the perfect bun with the obligatory side of perfect coleslaw; the Americans are pursuing the perfect blanquette de veau.”
“'Eclipse' is overlong and overly self-conscious, but it isn't a fake or a zero; it just gets exhausting. It raises a crucial question: 'When does Concept morph into Gimmick?'”
“Editing is simply the application of the common sense of any good reader. That's why, to be an editor, you have to be a reader. It's the number one qualification.”
“I was the only child, and I know my father had certain thoughts about me. He was a lawyer and extremely literary, but he would have been much happier if I had wanted to be a lawyer, a scientist, an engineer. But what I wanted to do was read.”
“Larry Hart and Dick Rodgers were both bright Jewish boys from Manhattan who at one point or another went to Columbia, but there the similarity in their backgrounds ends.”