Robert Helpmann quotes:

I was always nervous about coming back to Australia which was a complete hangover of the days when I left when ballet was not accepted, when I was not accepted, when I was considered a freak for wanting to be a ballet dancer. And, to be 100% honest, I rather dreaded coming back...

And I saw Australia anew through her eyes. And I realised what a tremendously thrilling country it was. And ever since then I have been coming back regularly.

Ballet is like football. I don't understand a footballer's technique but I can see when he's playing brilliantly. People don't like ballet because they think they don't understand it. Actually they do. It's the most primitive form of appeal.

I don't despair about the cultural scene in Australia because there isn't one to despair about.

Aren't all ballets sexy? I think they should be. I can think of nothing more kinky than a prince chasing a swan around all night.

I think you can be contemporary without taking your clothes off.

People often say to me - how clever you are! How brilliant to be able to go from ballet to theatre as you do. I answer that it is not clever at all. It is the gift of looking at oneself coolly, of calculating the future objectively. I could see the danger signals as far as ballet was concerned before anyone else did, that's all.

The trouble with nude dancing is that not everything stops when the music stops.

Theatre remains the only thing I understand. It is in the community of theatre that I have my being. In spite of jealousies and fears, emotional conflicts and human tensions; in spite of the penalty of success and the dread of failure; in spite of tears and feverish gaiety this is the only life I know. It is the life I love.