Top 1200 West Side Story Quotes & Sayings

I was a Spanish dancer. I don't mean to put that down, because that was great, too, but nothing like the kind of dancing you had to do in 'West Side Story,' which was called jazz.

I couldn't live without the genius of Stephen Sondheim, be it not just West Side Story,but Follies,Company,Sweeney Todd,Passion.You can go on and on.

I don't believe I was jinxed or hexed by winning an Academy Award in my first picture, 'West Side Story.'

From the American retelling of Romeo and Juliet in West Side Story to the Japanese adaptation of King Lear in Ran, Shakespeare's cultural influence is virtually limitless.

If you look at 'West Side Story,' a lot of those numbers are actually pretty cutty, but the cuts are always musically motivated.

In my youth, cinemas showed two films in one day. I used to watch both of them. It may sound strange, but 'West Side Story' was the only musical I liked. I didn't like musicals, or films with songs, at all. I always thought they were not real, that the songs sounded a little bit false. But in the case of 'West Side Story,' things were different.

'West Side Story' I used to watch all the time - I don't know why. Well, I do - it's a great movie. I love the music in it. I love the actors.

In high school, my first thing ever was I played Tony in West Side Story when I was about 17. I was a really shy kid and I just like forced myself to learn how to sing this one month because I loved West Side Story so much and I somehow managed to get the role. I had an afro and glasses, and the guy who cast me goes, "All right, the first thing to go is the afro and the next thing, I'm going to buy you contacts and we're going to get you..." So he kind of molded me into what it had to - that's still probably the hardest role I've every played in anything, the most taxing role.

In the States, it takes you a lifetime just to get from Chicago's South Side to the West Side.

I was at Elon University in North Carolina for two years pursuing my BFA. And after my sophomore year, I was cast in the Broadway Tour of 'West Side Story.' I just kind of - it always was my favorite show growing up.

Like the tail fins on fifties American cars or the parabolic shapes of Populuxe furniture, 'West Side Story' incarnates the dream of momentum in the golden age of the twentieth century.

I actually love 'West Side Story.' I think it's an amazing film to watch.

I auditioned for 'West Side Story' just like everybody else, and I nearly had a heart attack, because I hadn't danced in about - oh, I don't know, about 15 years.

A lot of people say to me, 'Is this good, to do to a Shakespeare piece?' And I think, 'You know, 'West Side Story' did it very cleverly, in a different way.' But if you look at 'Bonnie and Clyde,' 'Titanic,' 'Avatar,' 'Grease,' 'Brokeback Mountain'... they're all 'Romeo and Juliet' stories.

My background did not start with the East Side; it started with Greenwich Village, which is West Side.

Whether it's Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire or 'West Side Story,' see it on the big screen. That's the way we should appreciate it.

I was about seven or eight years old when I first heard West Side Story, and it had a huge impact on me. If you look at the elements of that record, it contains many of the things I enjoy doing today.

Gary Sinise and I go the furthest back of the Steppenwolf people; we were both saved from academic mediocrity as sophomores by being cast in 'West Side Story' by this transformationally beautiful teacher named Barbara Patterson.

There are roughly 22,000 Palestinians working side by side with what you call settlers in factories and malls in the West Bank. If you work together, you start understanding each other.

Oh yes, I've been approached to do all sorts of nonsense. How about a remake of 'West Side Story?'

If there were a song from 'West Side Story' that I would do, it would be 'Something's Coming,' but in a sense that put it in the right key for me and then do that one.

I was miserable in West Side Story. They really miscast me. I came from the Midwest; what they really needed was a guy that was street smart. The first time I saw the movie, I had to walk out. I looked like the biggest fruit that ever walked on to film. My character was so weak.

I think the Social Office is really the office where East meets West. For those that don't know, the East side is typically the First Lady's side of the house. The West side is typically the President's side of the house.

In 1957, “West Side Story” had introduced the musical to the reckless dark side of teen-age life; “Bye Bye Birdie,” set in Sweet Apple, Ohio, where the citizens apparently dress mostly in chartreuse, mauve, orange, periwinkle, and turquoise, was a walk on the bright side.

'West Side Story' is one of the greatest theatrical experiences I've had.

We would also go to musicals. So Singing In the Rain, On the Town, and West Side Story. Especially West Side Story because played that a lot before VCRs, so that would be something that would be a big deal if it came on, you caught it. So that really started, my family was not in show business at all but really loved that kind of thing.

I've always loved going to see Broadway shows. I've seen 'em all: Rent, Chorus Line, Cats, West Side Story, Guys & Dolls, Wicked, you name it!

I'm not really a big musical fan. I enjoyed 'West Side Story' when it came out, but it gets a bit tired in the end.

My first big role was when I was 17 and I got the part playing Maria in 'West Side Story' in my school production.

I made the film to bring the story of Islam, the story of 700 million of people, to the West.

My dream roles since I was very young were Tony in West Side Story and Pippin. But, now I leave that for the youngsters.

I got started as an actress doing musical theater, and I always loved 'Grease' and 'West Side Story,' and all those kind of movies.

I was born in the West Village in New York, and then when I was about four my family moved to what they joke is the suburbs, the Upper West Side. I lived there for most of my childhood.

Look at the darkest hit musicals - Cabaret, West Side Story, Carousel - they are exuberant experiences. They send you out of the theater filled with music

Along with its enchanting and exquisite melodies, West Side Story has attitude and a tremendous amount of frenetic energy. It's emotional, theatrical and technical. It's everything.

It sounds corny to say, but we're like a family. That experience for all of us really created a bond... The 'West Side Story' experience, it really is a family. There's a closeness that has continued.

I've always wanted to play Maria in West Side Story. My idol is Natalie Wood, and I love the movie, so I think a modern-day twist on it would be really neat.

I danced in a company of 'West Side Story' when I was very young. It was most of the original cast - Larry Kert, Chita Rivera - and Jerry Robbins directed. It was tough, a wonderful initiation for me.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing 'Maria' from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.

I'd love to be able to play all different roles, whether it's Maureen in Rent or Maria in West Side Story. I would just love to be involved in this business forever.

A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side.

Being a mixed-blood person of Ojibway and European ancestry, I always found that I only heard one side of the story - that was the conquerers' side, the side of the French Jesuit missionaries that came to live in what is now Ontario.

We love 'Fiddler.' We love 'West Side Story.' I want to be in that club. I want to be in the club that writes the musical that every high school does.

I had the advantage of reading the book, and when the script was first submitted to me, it was just another gangster story - the east side taking over the west side and all that.

In 1957, 'West Side Story' had introduced the musical to the reckless dark side of teen-age life; 'Bye Bye Birdie,' set in Sweet Apple, Ohio, where the citizens apparently dress mostly in chartreuse, mauve, orange, periwinkle, and turquoise, was a walk on the bright side.

I grew up on the West Side - the "near West Side," [in Detroit], as they say - in what would be considered now the inner city.

It's kind of wild and wonderful that 'West Side Story' continues to have a life after all these years. And when you see young people who are really engrossed by this film, that's so beautiful.

The Tonys ignored West Side Story. The Tonys ignored Gypsy. It's a kind of public humiliation.

You have to pay attention to the moments when you've felt on top on the world. I remember the first time I was on stage, I was doing 'West Side Story,' I was 17 and this woman was crying because she liked what I was doing so much.

I don't regret 'West Side Story' one bit. It was an incredible movie full of young people with amazing rapport.

The best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature. They have not seen the west side of any mountain.

The majority of Arab people would side with Russia and China, not with the West. And they'd throw their 'elites' groomed in and by the West, straight out the window.

My mom and dad are New Yorkers who left the tenement streets of the Bronx and came to Los Angeles when 'West Side Story' was real. They have the scars to prove it.

Look at the darkest hit musicals - Cabaret, West Side Story, Carousel - they are exuberant experiences. They send you out of the theater filled with music.

The wonderful drama teacher at my high school, Barbara Patterson, saw me standing in the hall and told me I should audition for 'West Side Story.' I guess she thought I looked like a gang member.

In high school, my first thing ever was I played Tony in 'West Side Story' when I was about 17. I was a really shy kid, and I just, like, forced myself to learn how to sing this one month because I loved 'West Side Story' so much, and I somehow managed to get the role.

West Side Story was terribly important because of the style of the dancing and the gangs of New York.

I think the thing's that perhaps sad really is that younger people haven't come in and I think it must have been absolutely fantastic to have worked in the 50's when you had all of the great Broadway composers and when West Side Story didn't win the Tony Award.

The dynamism and freedom that characterizes the West is the product of Christianity's reforming itself and moving forward culturally. The ascendancy of the West is the story of the difference that Christianity makes, and it's a story we can't let our culture forget.

I would like, if I can, to broaden the possibilities of the musical theater. I think there's a better 'Oklahoma!' someplace, a better 'West Side Story.' And I'd like to be mixed up in it.