11 Vaslav Nijinsky Quotes

Vaslav Nijinsky quotes

1. 'I merely leap and pause.'

2. 'I know everyone will say 'Nijinsky has gone mad', but I don't care because I have already played the mad man at home. That is what everyone will think, but they won't put me in an insane asylum because I dance very well and give money to anyone who asks. People like eccentrics, so they will leave me alone and say I'm a mad clown. I like the mentally ill because I know how to talk to them. When my brother was in an insane asylum, I loved him and he could feel me. His friends liked me. I was eighteen then. I understood the life of a mentally ill person.'

3. 'Nijinsky's life can be simply summed up: ten years of growth, ten years of learning, ten years of dancing, thirty years of darkness. Altogether some sixty years. How long he will live on in people's memories, we can only guess.'

1. I have come to the conclusion that it is better to be silent than to speak.

2. I danced frightening things. They were frightened of me and therefore thought that I wanted to kill them. I did not want to kill anyone. I loved everyone, but no one loved me, and therefore I became nervous.

3. I do not like eating meat because I have seen lambs and pigs killed. I saw and felt their pain. They felt the approaching death. I could not bear it. I cried like a child. I ran up a hill and could not breathe. I felt that I was choking. I felt the death of the lamb.

4. People like eccentrics. Therefore they will leave me alone, saying that I am a mad clown.

5. I am afraid of people because they want me to lead the same kind of life as they do. They want me to dance jolly and cheerful things. I do not like jollity. I love life.

6. I am not crying, but have tears in my heart.

7. I am not an ape, I am a man. The world has been created by God. Man has been created by God. It is not possible for man to understand God - God understands God. Man is God and therefore understands God. I am God. I am a man. I am good and not a beast. I am an animal with reason. I have flesh, I *am* flesh, I am not descended from flesh. Flesh is created by God. I am God. I am God. I am God.

8. “They are stupid, they are beasts, they are meat, they are death. I am talking simply but without any affectation.”