Quotes from Misty Copeland

You have to be the one promoting yourself. If you don't think that you're worthy, you're never going to make it.

I'm definitely very careful about the things that I want to be a part of, but it's also important for me to get dance out there to more people.

My first ballet class was on a basketball court. I'm in my gym clothes and my socks trying to do this thing called ballet. I didn't know anything about it.

I think body-image issues are not just a dancer thing. I think we're much more in tune and aware because the body is our instrument and art, and we stare at ourselves in a mirror all day, but I feel like it's something that every woman experiences and every girl experiences.

I absolutely love what I do, and I want to dance for as long as I can and feel good about what I am putting out there on the stage.

I wanted to open the dialogue about race in ballet and bring more people in. It's just beautiful to see the interest that has exploded for such an incredible art form that I will forever be grateful to!

It's a European art form, and you're used to seeing a certain type of person as a ballerina. And I don't look like a lot of the girls around me.

I think, as a child, there weren't dreams. I can't recall as a child having some ultimate dream and thinking that it was possible.

The woman represents ballet. She is most important, powerful and vital to it. Therefore, she is not "less than" a man. If anything she is "more than" in this field.

Dance kind of was always just a part of my natural state as a child. It's something that, whenever music was playing, I was dancing.

Ballet became this escape for me. I feel like I was on my own a lot. I was searching for stability, so I was going off on my own and imagining what I thought stability was. Ballet became a way for me to cope.

I think American Ballet Theatre is setting that standard now for classical ballet, that you can dream big, and it doesn't matter what you look like, where you come from, what your background is.

When I was 16, I moved to Torrance, California to train at a more advanced studio, and by 19, I joined the American Ballet Theatre in New York. It all happened so fast - it was pretty unheard of that someone could train for so few years and become a professional at one of the most elite dance companies in the United States.

It's hard to be the one that stands out when, you know, in a ballet company, you're trying to create unison and uniform when you're in a corps de ballet.

That it's possible to do positive things and I think that's how we're going to set an example to be respected as women in the world.

Every time I step onto the stage, it's not only proving to the audience that I'm capable but to myself.

'The Company' was interesting. I didn't love it, although it might be compelling to someone who isn't a dancer. There wasn't a lot of dialogue, and you were just kind of observing the creative process of choreography and in class.

When I was a little girl, I was incredibly shy. My hope was to blend in, to fit in, to not be noticed in any significant way. I was deeply insecure and unsure of myself.

I was definitely a late bloomer and didn't really come into my own until I was probably in my 20s.

There are hundreds of stories I've heard from black women from my generation, generations before me, and the next, that have never been given an opportunity to fulfill their dreams.

Success is not easy and I think everyone should know that hard work and perseverance and being open to giving back are so much more powerful than stepping all over people to get to the top.

It's really amazing that I was discovered and that I've been given these great opportunities to travel the world and work with amazing artists. I'm very blessed.

I know that most of the time I have to work overtime to do everything that I want to.

I think all dancers are control freaks a bit. We just want to be in control of ourselves and our bodies. That's just what the ballet structure, I think, kind of puts inside of you.