Fred Astaire quotes

Fred Astaire was an American dancer, singer, and actor renowned for his innovative and elegant performances in film and on stage. His style and grace redefined dance in musical cinema, influencing countless performers. He is remembered as one of the greatest dancers in history. Here are 78 of his quotes:

I have no desire to prove anything by it. I have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself. I just dance. (Fred Astaire)
Either the camera will dance, or I will. View quote
Fred Astaire
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. View quote
Fred Astaire
I don't make love by kissing, I make love by dancing. View quote
Fred Astaire
I just put my feet in the ground and move them around. View quote
Fred Astaire
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. View quote
Fred Astaire
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. View quote
Fred Astaire
People think I was born in top hat and tails. View quote
Fred Astaire
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?' View quote
Fred Astaire
I guess the only jewels of my life were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire. View quote
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire is the best singer of songs the movie world ever knew. His phrasing has individual sophistication that is utterly charming. Presumably the runner-up would be Bing Crosby, a wonderful fellow, though he doesn't have the unstressed elegance of Astaire. (Fred Astaire)
He lacks confidence to the most enormous degree of all the people in the world. He will not even go to see his rushes. He'll stay out in the alley and pace up and down and worry and collar you when you come out and say: ‘How good was so and so?', and he'll keep you for 45 minutes. It would be much simpler if he would go and look at them himself, you know? But he always thinks he's no good. View quote
Fred Astaire
The history of dance on film begins with Astaire. View quote
Fred Astaire
Astaire can't do anything bad. View quote
Fred Astaire
For a guy who had retired ostensibly, your comeback represents the greatest event since Satchel Paige. View quote
Fred Astaire
Of all the actors and actresses I've ever worked with, the hardest worker is Fred Astaire. He behaved like he was a young man whose whole destiny depended on being successful in his first film. He rehearses between takes, after takes - there's no limit to his professionalism. View quote
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire once worked so hard/ he often lost his breath/ and now he taps all other chaps to death. View quote
Fred Astaire
Mr. Llewellyn paused. Mr. Trout had begun to float about the room like something out of Swan Lake, and Mr. Llewellyn disapproved of this. He was apt to be a martinet in his dealings with his legal advisers, demanding that lawyers should behave like lawyers and leave eccentric dancing to the professionals. A man, he held, is either Fred Astaire or he is not Fred Astaire, and if he is not Fred Astaire he should not carry on like him. View quote
Fred Astaire
What do dancers think of Fred Astaire? It's no secret. We hate him. He gives us a complex because he's too perfect. His perfection is an absurdity. It's too hard to face. View quote
Fred Astaire
Mr. Astaire is the nearest approach we are ever likely to have to a human Mickey Mouse; he might have been drawn by Mr. Walt Disney, with his quick physical wit, his incredible agility. He belongs to a fantasy world almost as free as Mickey's from the law of Gravity. View quote
Fred Astaire
Come on, Fred, I'm not your sister, you know. (Fred Astaire)
When I was in the Soviet Union recently I was being interviewed by a newspaperman and he said, "Which dancers influenced you the most?" and I said, "Oh, well, Fred Astaire." He looked very surprised and shocked and I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "Well, Mr. Balanchine just said the same thing." View quote
Fred Astaire
He was not just the best ballroom dancer, or tap dancer, he was simply the greatest, most imaginative, dancer of our time. View quote
Fred Astaire
There's nothing to beat these old English country houses." said Charlie, becoming lyrical. "All those parks and gardens and terraces and stuff. Makes you think of bygone ages and knights in armour and all like that. I saw one of these joints in a movie in Cicero once with Fred Astaire in it, and I remember thinking those guys have it pretty soft. View quote
Fred Astaire
A four wood I hit on the 13th hole at Bel Air Country Club in June of 1945. It landed right on the green and rolled into the cup for a hole in one. View quote
Fred Astaire