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.
It’s nice that all the composers have said that nobody interprets a lyric like Fred Astaire. But when it comes to selling records I was never worth anything particularly except as a collector’s item.
Chance is the fool’s name for Fate.
Why didn’t you tell me i was in love with you?
We attend to his later performances as a dramatic actor with respect, but watching the nondancing, nonsinging Astaire is like watching a grounded skylark.
In dealing with a girl or a horse, one lets nature take its course.
I’m just a hoofer with a spare set of tails.
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?”
And that love that wrinkles your nose touches my foolish heart.
This search for what you want is like tracking something that doesn’t want to be tracked. It takes time to get a dance right, to create something memorable.
I had some ballet training but didn’t like it. It was like a game to me.
I don’t like top hats, white ties, and tails.
People think I was born in top hat and tails.
Oh, God! That boy moves in a very exceptional way. That’s the greatest dancer of the century.
Either the camera will dance, or I will.
Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.
I have never had anything that I can remember in the business – and that includes all the movies and the stage shows and everything – that I didn’t enjoy. I didn’t like some of the small-time vaudeville, because we weren’t going on and getting better. Aside from that, I didn’t dislike anything.
I am bit sending messages with my feet. All I ever wanted was not to come up empty. I did it for the dough and the old applause.
The unpadded shoulders, the three-buttoned long and boxy coat, the too-short, thin pants, and the thin ties with striped buttoned shirts in dark colors-well, I suppose this may go very well with some personalities but it’s not for me. To me, all such look like TV producers. Maybe they want to.
Slippery stages were the terror of my life.
I don’t remember anybody ever pointing me out as a dancing prodigy, but I played a not bad second base.