Gene Kelly Quotes

You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams. And I know if I can make you smile by jumping over a couple of couches or running through a rainstorm, then I'll be very glad to be a song and dance man.

Dignity, always Dignity!

I firmly believe in small gestures: pay for their coffee, hold the door for strangers, over tip, smile or try to be kind even when you don’t feel like it, pay compliments, chase the kid’s runaway ball down the sidewalk and throw it back to him, try to be larger than you are— particularly when it’s difficult. People do notice, people appreciate. I appreciate it when it’s done to (for) me. Small gestures can be an effort, or actually go against our grain (“I’m not a big one for paying compliments…”), but the irony is that almost every time you make them, you feel better about yourself. For a moment life suddenly feels lighter, a bit more Gene Kelly dancing in the rain.

Sure, she loves him. But they've got two different ideas of love. He wants to dance with her on a terrace with a full moon and a thirty-six-piece orchestra; he wants to go singing through storms with her, like Gene Kelly. She knows about thirty-six-piece orchestras. You have to feed them, and then there's nothing left for the children.

This is the reason why atheists protest the “God” gene and religious will hate and protest religion as a virus. They were blindfolded at an early age, and their psychological issues were the blindfold. The facts are often used as weapons rather than information to convey truth.

This is the great trap of life: One day rolls into the next, and a year goes by, and we still haven’t had that conversation we always meant to have. Still haven’t created that peak moment for our students. Still haven’t seen the northern lights. We walk a flatland that could have been a mountain range. It’s not easy to snap out of this tendency. It took a terminal illness for Gene O’Kelly to do it.

I had come to wonder about the true nature of commitment. In fact, it's not about time. It's not about reliability and predictability. Commitment is about depth. It's about effort. It's about passion. It's about wanting to be in a certain place, and not somewhere else. Of course time is involved; it would be naïve and illogical to suggest otherwise. But commitment is best measured not by the time one is willing to give up but, more accurately, by the energy one wants to put in, by how present one is.

Peter smiled as Concheetah sashayed across the ballroom floor Concheetah sashayed towards him, wriggling her hips, full lips in a pout, followed obediently by the tentative, Tapping Ted dressed in tight shorts and singlet. Tapping? Tapping because he always wore conspicuous, tap-dancing shoes in the club. Was Ted going to rip up the stage as a mincing Irish dancer or maybe perform a Gene Kelly routine or the Swan Lake ballet in taps? It was terrible to imagine. Peter bit his lip at that thought, hoping he wouldn’t burst into howls of laughter. He had noted after coming to several shows, that Ted usually stood at the side of the stage ready with a drink of champagne and an encouraging word and a dry towel to mop Her Highness’s face. And he always cried during the show’s finale, Abba’s Dancing Queen. Poor Tapping Ted.

When facing reality, we want to see the big picture. To simplify, it’s important to consider all aspects of our experience. The experience of being in the moment centers us, and being centered puts us in the moment. Recognizing perfection requires us to notice where we are at any given moment. If we are in the center, also look to the periphery. Likewise, if we are on the periphery, recognize where the other rings are and where the center is. Achieving balance is the ability to be centered wherever we are. Ideally, we want to increase the size of the center so that it encompasses as many rings as possible.

A quote about Carla Kelly - We used to have a family saying around the dinner table. For expediency in feeding our large number of children we would sometimes forego the use of a serving dish and just put one pot or another on the table. The expression was, "It's okay - Carla Kelly isn't here today." Dinner at the Kellys, and Carla's insistence on proper dining decorum was always a bright spot in our occasional family visits. - Gene McAvoy 7-22-10

Barbara and I had arrived early, so I got to admire everyone’s entrance. We were seated at tables around a dance floor that had been set up on the lawn behind the house. Barbara and I shared a table with Deborah Kerr and her husband. Deborah, a lovely English redhead, had been brought to Hollywood to play opposite Clark Gable in The Hucksters. Louis B. Mayer needed a cool, refined beauty to replace the enormously popular redhead, Greer Garson, who had married a wealthy oil magnate and retired from the screen in the mid-fifties. Deborah, like her predecessor, had an ultra-ladylike air about her that was misleading. In fact, she was quick, sharp, and very funny. She and Barbara got along like old school chums. Jimmy Stewart was also there with his wife. It was the first time I’d seen him since we’d worked for Hitchcock. It was a treat talking to him, and I felt closer to him than I ever did on the set of Rope. He was so genuinely happy for my success in Strangers on a Train that I was quite moved. Clark Gable arrived late, and it was a star entrance to remember. He stopped for a moment at the top of the steps that led down to the garden. He was alone, tanned, and wearing a white suit. He radiated charisma. He really was the King. The party was elegant. Hot Polynesian hors d’oeuvres were passed around during drinks. Dinner was very French, with consommé madrilène as a first course followed by cold poached salmon and asparagus hollandaise. During dessert, a lemon soufflé, and coffee, the cocktail pianist by the pool, who had been playing through dinner, was discreetly augmented by a rhythm section, and they became a small combo for dancing. The dance floor was set up on the lawn near an open bar, and the whole garden glowed with colored paper lanterns. Later in the evening, I managed a subdued jitterbug with Deborah Kerr, who was much livelier than her cool on-screen image. She had not yet done From Here to Eternity, in which she and Burt Lancaster steamed up the screen with their love scene in the surf. I was, of course, extremely impressed to be there with Hollywood royalty that evening, but as far as parties go, I realized that I had a lot more fun at Gene Kelly’s open houses.

I firmly believe in small gestures: pay for their coffee, hold the door for strangers, over tip, smile or try to be kind even when you don't feel like it, pay compliments, chase the kid's runaway ball down the sidewalk and throw it back to him, try to be larger than you are-- particularly when it's difficult. People do notice, people appreciate. I appreciate it when it’s done to (for) me. Small gestures can be an effort, or actually go against our grain ("I'm not a big one for paying compliments..."), but the irony is that almost every time you make them, you feel better about yourself. For a moment life suddenly feels lighter, a bit more Gene Kelly dancing in the rain.

I never liked North America, even first trip. It is not most crowded part of Terra, has a mere billion people. In Bombay they sprawl on pavements; in Great New York they pack them vertically--not sure anyone sleeps. Was glad to be in invalid's chair. Is mixed-up place another way; they care about skin color--by making point of how they don't care. First trip I was always too light or too dark, and somehow blamed either way, or was always being expected to take stand on things I have no opinions on. Bog knows I don't know what genes I have. One grandmother came from a part of Asia where invaders passed as regularly as locusts, raping as they went--why not ask her? Learned to handle it by my second makee-learnee but it left a sour taste. Think I prefer a place as openly racist as India, where if you aren't Hindu, you're nobody--except that Parsees look down on Hindus and vice versa. However I never really had to cope with North America's reverse-racism when being "Colonel O' Kelly Davis, Hero of Lunar Freedom.

I wasn't sure which part of me was the smart one anymore. Maybe, for the first time, I realized that consistency, a trait I had long esteemed, was sometimes not such a virtue after all. Spontaneity was coming up fast down the stretch. When you get to this stage, of course you'll flail at first. After all, look what you're up against. But if you start to live in the present now, not only do you get to enjoy it (which is huge), but you also prepare yourself for the future, which someday will be your present, breathing in your face. If you've practiced, you'll be able to live there. You'll have that muscle. It will be strong.

Once, while playing in a tournament at the Monterey Peninsula Club, I hit a shot off the tee, a par five. It looked like a very good shot, but, unfortunately, the ball landed next to a waste area. When I went to hit my second shot, I missed the ball. Whiffed completely. Embarrassingly. The whiff counted as a shot, of course. My third shot was not much better, leaving me a good 200 yards from the green. I hit my fourth shot and finally made it onto the green. As I walked onto the green, I couldn't find my ball... had it rolled off? Had I sent it longer than I thought, into the sand on the far side? I looked and looked and looked. The ball was in the hole. I'd made a birdie four on a par five, after one of my shots was whiffed and another was almost as terrible. A surprise, I think, is really just an inevitability that we're too unsophisticated to predict.

from doing for the time required, when everything went

over and what we can’t.

fully 99 percent of the genetic material in your body is not your own. It belongs to your microbial comrades. These microbes not only influence the expression of our DNA, but research reveals that throughout our evolution microbial DNA has become part of our own DNA. In other words, genes from microbes have inserted themselves into our genetic code (mitochondrial DNA being the prime example) to help us evolve and flourish.

Nature is thus more than a diverse gene bank harboring undiscovered herbal cures for future diseases—although

Pero quiere la maldita Cantando bajo la lluvia terminar con Gene Kelly diciéndole a Debbie Reynolds que ella es su buena estrella, y que la vio de lejos con sus hermosos ojos brillantes, y que le abrió las puertas del cielo, y ella le contesta que él la hechizó y no sé qué más, porque no soy capaz de contenerme y me giro hacia Manuel y él me hace un gesto de "Lo lamento pero las cosas son exactamente así".

Berlin wrote songs for a number of Astaire films of the period: Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, On the Avenue, Carefree. The two men became close personal friends for the rest of their lives. But the choice of Astaire as a Hollywood leading man is, at first glance, puzzling. Certainly, he was an extraordinary dancer, and songwriters appreciated his accuracy and clarity when singing their songs, even if his voice was reedy and thin. But a leading man? Essentially, Astaire epitomized what Berlin and other Jews strove to achieve. He was debonair, polished, sophisticated. His screen persona was that of a raffish, outspoken fellow, not obviously attractive, whose audacity and romanticism and wit in the end won out. It didn’t hurt that he could dance. But even his dance—so smooth and elegant—was done mostly to jazz. Unlike a Gene Kelly, who was athletic, handsome, and sexy, Astaire got by on style. Kelly was American whereas Astaire was continental. In short, Astaire was someone the immigrant might himself become. It was almost like Astaire was himself Jewish beneath the relaxed urbanity. In a film like Top Hat he is audacious, rude, clever, funny, and articulate, relying mostly on good intentions and charm to win over the girl—and the audience. He is the antithesis of a Clark Gable or a Gary Cooper; Astaire is all clever and chatty, balding, small, and thin. No rugged individualist he. And yet his romantic nature and persistence win all. Astaire only got on his knees to execute a dazzling dance move, never as an act of submission. His characters were largely wealthy, self-assured, and worldly. He danced with sophistication and class. In his famous pairings with Ginger Rogers, the primary dance numbers had the couple dressed to the nines, swirling on equally polished floors to the strains of deeply moving romantic ballads.

Berlin wrote songs for a number of Astaire films of the period: Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, On the Avenue, Carefree. The two men became close personal friends for the rest of their lives. But the choice of Astaire as a Hollywood leading man is, at first glance, puzzling. Certainly, he was an extraordinary dancer, and songwriters appreciated his accuracy and clarity when singing their songs, even if his voice was reedy and thin. But a leading man? Essentially, Astaire epitomized what Berlin and other Jews strove to achieve. He was debonair, polished, sophisticated. His screen persona was that of a raffish, outspoken fellow, not obviously attractive, whose audacity and romanticism and wit in the end won out. It didn’t hurt that he could dance. But even his dance—so smooth and elegant—was done mostly to jazz. Unlike a Gene Kelly, who was athletic, handsome, and sexy, Astaire got by on style. Kelly was American whereas Astaire was continental. In short, Astaire was someone the immigrant might himself become. It was almost like Astaire was himself Jewish beneath the relaxed urbanity. In a film like Top Hat he is audacious, rude, clever, funny, and articulate, relying mostly on good intentions and charm to win over the girl—and the audience. He is the antithesis of a Clark Gable or a Gary Cooper; Astaire is all clever and chatty, balding, small, and thin. No rugged individualist he. And yet his romantic nature and persistence win all.

It’s strange to realize that, despite having an innate ability for it, I am actually terrible at being crazy. How can one be so bad at something one is meant to be? Bipolar disorder is, after all, some combination of genes and their expression. Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s dopamine.

ARTHUR FREED: When I first signed Gene Kelly, nobody in the studio liked him. They said, “You’re not going to put him opposite Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal?” I said, “He’s perfect for it, he’s an Irishman.” Eddie Mannix said, “But he’s the wrong kind of Irishman.” I had lunch with Mayer, and I said, “I want to tell you something: I’m starting the picture next week, and everybody thinks that I’m doing the wrong thing putting Gene Kelly opposite Judy.” He said, “How do you feel?” I said, “I love him.” He said, “Well, then, don’t listen to all those schmucks.

My chronic fatigue is tired for her.

of Gene Kelly and Rock Hudson, I had always expected boys to carry themselves with a similar elegance and charm.

Oh, and honey, if she’s talking about the boy you posted to your blog this morning, listen to your friend: he has every marker of a man in love, and he’s pretty cute too.' 'Agreed, but not as cute as my Andrew, if you’re ever in Ohio,' the stuffed scarf supplies. 'Andrew’s in jail, Beatrice. Stop trying to pawn him off on unsuspecting woman.' 'He’ll be out in two more years on good behavior, and he’s a doctor.' 'No, he’s not, Bea.' The gray-haired lady groans. 'That’s why he’s in jail.

Her gün, kendi kendime artık çok geç olduğunu söylüyorum. Hiçbir şey öğrenmeden, anlamadan heba olan 10 yılı asla telafi edemeyeceğim. Asla Gene Kelly, Pollock, Virginia Woolf veya Chris Killip olamayacağım. Buna nefesim yetmez. Bunun için donanımlı değilim. Bu, acı verici. Önceden, olabileceğime biraz inanırdım. Kendi yeteneğine inandığın o yaşlarda, kendime bu hikayeyi gizlice anlatırdım. O yaşlarda, sanki bu hikaye kendiliğinden parça parça önünde oluşacak gibi zannedersin. Tüm bunları düşünüyorum. Tekrar tekrar kafa yoruyorum. Bunun faydasız olduğunu biliyorum. Egomu törpülemem lazım. Olmadığım bir şeyin beni ele geçirmesine izin vermemeliyim. Sınırlarımı oluşturan tahammül edilemez duvara her gün tosluyorum ama yine de devam ediyorum. Sanki bir bisiklette gibi. Durursam, düşüyorum.

He told me tight. Firm. Warm. He’s everything—late nights chasing fireflies, picking lilacs in blossom, boombox blaring, singing and dancing in the rain, and utter defeat and humiliation. He, frankly, is home. And I’m suddenly sick.

(The children of the living and the dead most often take after their dead parents. Life, like red hair or blue eyes, is a recessive gene.)

Úgy döntöttem, hogy ha női cipőkről van szó, lényegében sztrájkolok. Kiszállok az egész cipellő-világból, amíg nem képesek valami olyat tervezni, amiben több mint egy órán át lehet járni a táncra perdülő Gene Kelly könnyed lépteivel, és utána nem fáj a lábad egy napig. Tökéletesen tisztában vagyok vele, hogy a lábbeliekkel szembeni igényeim jelen pillanatban csupán kisebbségi érdeknek minősülnek – ki tudja, meddig dübörögnek még a Szex és New York Blahnik-ajnározásának utóhatásai –, de akkor is eltökélt vagyok. Végső soron én is láttam azokat a képeket Victoria Beckham csupasz, bütykös lábairól. Nem akarok úgy kinézni, mint azok a Contergan-hurkák. Ha egyszer elverek 500 fontot egy márkás cipőre, az olyan legyen, amiben a) tudok táncolni a „Bad Romance”-ra, és b) el tudok futni egy gyilkos elől, ha netán egyszer hirtelen üldözőbe venne. Ez a minimum, amit elvárok egy cipőtől. Hogy lehessen benne szaladni, és ne gyilkoljanak le miatta.

The idea of specific populations predisposed to obesity is encapsulated in a notion now known as the thrifty gene—technically, the thrifty-genotype hypothesis—that is now commonly invoked to explain the existence of the obesity epidemic and why we might all gain weight easily during periods of prosperity but have such difficulty losing it. The idea, initially proposed in 1962 by the University of Michigan geneticist James Neel, is that we are programmed by our genes to survive in the paleolithic hunter-gatherer era that encompassed the two million years of human evolution before the adoption of agriculture—a mode of life still lived by many isolated populations before extensive contact with Western societies. “Such genes would be advantageous under the conditions of unpredictably alternating feast and famine that characterized the traditional human lifestyle,” explained the UCLA anthropologist Jared Diamond in 2003, “but they would lead to obesity and diabetes in the modern world when the same individuals stop exercising, begin foraging for food only in supermarkets and consume three high-calorie meals day in, and day out.” In other words, the human body evolved to be what Kelly Brownell has called an “exquisitely efficient calorie conservation machine.

She began to move, closing her eyes and letting the music roll through her. Since childhood Izzie had had an affinity for music—all types of music. It had always made her want to move. To sway or to spin, to leap or to bend. She just had a dancing gene that demanded release whenever the right beat hit her ears and rolled on down through her body.

About two weeks later, on September 10, 2005, O’Kelly died of a pulmonary embolism. What O’Kelly realized, in the shadow of his final days, was the extraordinary power of a moment. He wrote: I experienced more Perfect Moments and Perfect Days in two weeks than I had in the last five years, or than I probably would have in the next five years, had my life continued the way it was going before my diagnosis. Look at your own calendar. Do you see Perfect Days ahead? Or could they be hidden and you have to find a way to unlock them? If I told you to aim to create 30 Perfect Days, could you? How long would it take? Thirty days? Six months? Ten years? Never? I felt like I was living a week in a day, a month in a week, a year in a month. Now, take a second look at the beginning of O’Kelly’s memoir, especially those final two words: “I was blessed. I was told I had three months to live.” That opportunity to live was why he felt blessed. Shouldn’t we share his zeal for moments that matter? We may have more time to live than he did, but should that be a reason to put them off? This is the great trap of life: One day rolls into the next, and a year goes by, and we still haven’t had that conversation we always meant to have. Still haven’t created that peak moment for our students. Still haven’t seen the northern lights. We walk a flatland that could have been a mountain range. It’s not easy to snap out of this tendency. It took a terminal illness for Gene O’Kelly to do it. What would it take to motivate you to create a Perfect Moment?