Gene Kelly quotes

I didn't want to be a dancer... I just did it to work my way through college. But I was always an athlete and gymnast, so it came naturally. (Gene Kelly)

Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat.

Gene Kelly

I still find it almost impossible to relax for more than one day at a time.

Gene Kelly

When Ginger Rogers danced with Astaire, it was the only time in the movies when you looked at the man, not the woman.

Gene Kelly

I wanted to do new things with dance, adapt it to the motion picture medium.

Gene Kelly

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

Gene Kelly

In the 1930s, when I started, Martha Graham was the only dancer doing anything modern, but she did it all to classical music. I couldn't see myself doing Swan Lake every night, and I wanted to develop a truly American style. The only dancer in the movies at that time with any success was Fred Astaire, but he did very small, elegant steps in a top hat, white tie, and tails.

Gene Kelly

It's all true. It's true I didn't want to be a dancer. What I really wanted to be was a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Then at 14 I discovered girls, and began to study dancing diligently. At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship. Only later did I discover you dance joy. You dance love. You dance dreams. Of course, the Pittsburgh Pirates lost a hell of a shortstop.

Gene Kelly

I got started dancing because I knew it was one way to meet girls.

Gene Kelly

At 14 I discovered girls. At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship. Only later did I discover that you dance joy. You dance love. You dance dreams.

Gene Kelly

Things danced on the screen do not look the way they do on the stage. On the stage, dancing is three-dimensional, but a motion picture is two-dimensional. (Gene Kelly)

My mother had gotten a job as a receptionist at a dancing school and had the idea that we should open our own dancing school; we did, and it prospered.

Gene Kelly

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.

Gene Kelly

I arrived in Hollywood twenty pounds overweight and as strong as an ox.

Gene Kelly

At 14 I discovered girls. At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship.

Gene Kelly

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.

Gene Kelly