Chita Rivera Quotes

I finally decided if I was going to make a living, I was gonna have to come to New York.

I think the defining moment in my career is the day that I moved to Nashville - September 1, 2001. That's the biggest step to getting here is making that move. Anything that happens, the wonderful opportunities that happen to you, can't happen until you make that move.

Chicago was a good place for me. Maybe New York will be better.

I decided if it was going to be a mistake to come to New York and try and make a career in fashion, then it was going to be my mistake... But the American dream is real. I'm living it.

It had always been a dream of mine to come to New York to work. Coming to New York and looking for work is one thing, but coming to New York and already having a job and feeling like you are already part of the city has been an amazing experience for me.

My parents were very humanistic, but where we lived was not the cultural center of the world. Hardly. So I came to New York for two reasons: to find my own kin and also to get a job. And that's what I came to New York for in '67.

Meanwhile after failing the bar twice, I knew some people in New York and moved here in August '71.

My wife, aside from being amazing in general, was really the catalyst in this, and I really owe a lot of the move to New York to her. She reminded me I've always wanted to do move to New York for theater and said, 'Let's stop talking about it and do it.'

When I was a senior, I got accepted into the Julliard School for Dance, but ultimately decided to move to L.A. to act, so that was a fun conversation with the parents. I truly have some of the greatest parents ever.

I wish I had stayed and finished my career here in New York.

I moved to London to go to dance school when I was about 17, but then I realized that I didn't want to be a dancer anymore, so I dropped out after five or six weeks. All I wanted to do was sing and make music.

I have to admit I've rarely been happier in my life. I have been absolutely thrilled to be back in New York and living a block from where I grew up. Just to be back in New York and, quite honestly, away from Hollywood has been an absolute thrill for me. I feel like I'm a real actor again.

Sure enough, it wasn't long until I got a call, telling me I had a scholarship there. It was the only scholarship offer I had and, believe me, I jumped at it.

When I first moved to L.A. as a dancer, all I wanted to do was dance. I never even considered trying to act or direct.

Moving to New York made all the difference in my creating this new series with Ellie Hatcher. I love Portland, and it's always going to be one of my favorite cities, but it was getting to the point where, after I'd moved to New York, I couldn't write as specifically about Portland any more.

I asked my parents for permission to study in America and they were so sure that I wouldn't get in and get a scholarship that they encouraged me to try. So I applied to Yale and got an excellent scholarship. I then worked for the Boston Consulting Group for six and half years.

I started out a die-hard New Yorker but really grew to love working in Los Angeles. Even though I originally wanted to do theater, TV presented more opportunities for me, which led me out west.

I always say, and I mean it, that the great break of my literary career was when I went to law school.

I did live in New York. Yeah, I moved to L.A. for 'Community.' And I gave up my apartment in New York.

I had a career at home, and I just knew that it'd be okay if nothing happened in Los Angeles.

I made the decision to come back to New York, quit my job and move to Paris.

There is more opportunity for a nobody to become a somebody in Washington than in the whirl-pool of New York.

It became my first passion, the first thing I really fell in love with. I joined the Ralph Robinson Ballet company, and then went to New York and became a dancer. I thought I'd die before I did anything else.

I used to be a wonderful auditioner. When I was living in New York, I'd audition every day. And I like to audition. But then it got to a point where I didn't like it anymore.

I've gotten scholarships from the Asian-American Directors Guild of America society and things like that, and those things helped me, even if I didn't realize how much.