What do dancer Michael Jackson, business mogul Oprah Winfrey, and actor Patrick Swayze all have in common? They’ve all attributed their success to one thing – dancing. In this compilation of dancing quotes, you’ll learn how to unleash your inner dancer and achieve success in whatever you do.

The best dancing quotes

1. Imagining [The Wizard of Oz] without Judy Garland is a bit like dancing on wet cement: you can do it, but why would you want to? — Pauline Kael

2. When you go to a club it’s not about being black or white or heavy or thick. I’m shaking my ass because I want to shake my ass, not ’cause ‘I’m dancing like a black girl! — Miley Cyrus

3. There was no place else she’d rather be than slow–dancing on a beach with the sexiest, sweetest, most attentive man she’d ever been with. — Robin Bielman, Keeping Mr. Right Now

4. My feet have been my best friend for the last 40 years. I’ve just been a dancing fool on stage, and after awhile you just kind of wear them out. — Steven Tyler

5. Doubt quit stopping by when I started staying out late, dancing in a flood of self assurance discovered when holding your hand. — Taylor Patton

6. Dancing on the edge is the only place to be. — Trisha Brown

7. Content’ ranges anywhere from the logo on a can of soup, dogs dancing on youtube, to the coding of an app:it’s confusing! — Natasha Tsakos

8. Creativity has nothing to do with any activity in particular–with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular. — Rajneesh

9. There is pain and sacrifice in everyone’s world. That’s why, when I was dancing, I had no pain. — Suzanne Farrell

10. Happiness is hanging with friends who know you way more than you’d care to share. — Todd Stocker, Dancing with God: First Year Thoughts on the Loss of My Daughter

11. Night falls over Machu Picchu to the sound of Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’. — Michael Palin, Full Circle

12. When you turn an election into a three–ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win. — Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400–Year Untold History of Class in America

13. Dancing is not just getting up painlessly, like a leaf blown on the wind; dancing is when you tear your heart out and rise out of your body to hang suspended between the worlds. — Rumi

14. The key to finding your mission lies in listening to your heart and dancing to its beat. — Pooja Ruprell

15. It is in my internal and external struggles, when it feels like someone is river–dancing on my last nerve, that the fruit of the Spirit is developed. — Matt Chandler

16. Dancing in the strip club, Not the dancing, but the being naked was excruciatingly scary for me. — Mary Steenburgen

17. The moon was just starting to rise above the Tetons, shining — RaeAnne Thayne, Dancing in the Moonlight

18. I love composing and writing music and dancing and performing and conceptualizing creatively for visual mediums. I love to create. — Michael Jackson

19. I could watch her dance for hours, Because she’s always dancing inside of my heart. — Tanzy Sayadi, Write like no one is reading 2

20. Nothing makes me happier than dancing. It transforms me. It’s the only time I let out what is inside and I feel completely sensual and sexy and alive. — Sandra Bullock

21. When you turn an election into a three–ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win. — Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400–Year Untold History of Class in America

22. I’ve been in every disco in the world. I saw a picture of my wife Shakira and I dancing in Studio 54; I didn’t even know someone had taken that picture. — Sir Michael Caine

23. I want to do with skates what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing. — Sonja Henie

24. Then I thought of the tribe whose dances never fail / For they keep dancing till they sight the deer. — Seamus Heaney

25. It’s a new day. Yesterday’s failure is redeemed at the sunrise — Todd Stocker, Dancing with God: First Year Thoughts on the Loss of My Daughter

26. Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery. — Martha Graham

27. Of course he had a female following. Was there anything college girls found sexier than being told what to think? — Mira Jacob, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing

28. I don’t understand why the press is so interested in speculating about my appearance, anyway. What does my face have to do with my music or my dancing? — Michael Jackson

29. Doubt quit stopping by when I started staying out late, dancing in a flood of self assurance discovered when holding your hand. — Taylor Patton

30. I would have to challenge the term, modern dance. I don’t really use that term in relation to my work. I simply think of it as dancing. I think of it as moving. — Twyla Tharp

31. I don’t understand why the press is so interested in speculating about my appearance, anyway. What does my face have to do with my music or my dancing? — Michael Jackson

32. Haven’t I proved to you yet that I don’t give a damn about your missing parts? — RaeAnne Thayne, Dancing In The Moonlight

33. My career as an actor started when I was six years old, taking dancing lessons. Then I started getting paid jobs to dance at the age of seven. — Sid Haig

34. Are there moments when I see unrequited crushes or ex–boyfriends slow dancing with their dates and kind of want to stab myself in the spleen with a salad fork? Yeah, sure. — Sloane Crosley

35. I feel amazing right now. I just feel like dancing. — Venus Williams

36. The Rosebank dancing school gives the high–quality training and enjoyable atmosphere for dance lessons in Glasgow. — Rosebank dancing

37. My style is bad white–boy dancing. I can do swing a little bit, but nothing beyond that. My solo dancing is sad. I use my arms, badly. — Robin Williams

38. What is celebration?’ Rather than dancing, rather than laughing, rather than loving, rather than enjoying this silence, the mind asks: ‘what is celebration?’ — Rajneesh

39. It occurred to me when I was thirteen and wearing white gloves and Mary Janes and going to dancing school, that no one should have to dance backward all their lives. — William Ruckelshaus

40. Dancing with heartbreak is the strangest thing. It’s like playing with fire — you know you’ll get burnt but you are still captivated by the flickering flame and the magnetic heat.

41. Sometimes I feel we express more with dancing or acting or painting than with words. — Penelope Cruz

42. Unless you enjoy life passionately, you cannot be a good artiste. Practise what you like, be it sports or dancing. — Sarita Choudhury

43. I don’t understand why the press is so interested in speculating about my appearance, anyway. What does my face have to do with my music or my dancing? — Michael Jackson

44. Spirit is a child, the tune of dancing feet its lullaby. — Shah Asad Rizvi

45. I would have to challenge the term, modern dance. I don’t really use that term in relation to my work. I simply think of it as dancing. I think of it as moving. — Twyla Tharp

46. Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire. — Robert Frost

47. How can you put on a meaningful drama when every fifteen minutes proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper? — Rod Serling

48. Although I love elegant parties, dancing and dining and spending the night with a sweet woman in my arms, my life belongs to literature. — Roman Payne, The Wanderess

49. Step is about how if you have mental illness and try to dance you look very funny. Whenever you see me dancing on stage, I’m imitating the mentally ill. — Thom Yorke

50. …dancing in the carnage and the flames. — Rosemary A. Johns

Conclusion

We hope this collection of quotes has given you a new appreciation for the art of dancing. Dancing can be a great way to express yourself and let loose, no matter what your age or skill level. From the wise words of Michael Jackson to the powerful words of Billie Holiday, these quotes remind us that dancing is a beautiful form of self-expression that should be celebrated.