Before dance came into my life, I don't really remember having any major goals or dreams of wanting to be anything.

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.

You can do anything you want, even if you are being told negative things.stay strong and find motivation.

The best piece of advice that I remember probably on a daily basis is to accept everything about me that is different. That is what makes me special.

You can dream big and it doesn't matter what you look like, where you come from.

My body is very different from most of the dancers I dance with. My hair is different than most I dance with. But I didn't let that stop me. Black girls rock and can be ballerinas.

The path to your success is not as fixed and inflexible as you think.

You're always working to improve, and you're always being critiqued on your next performance. It's not about what you've done. There's always room to grow.

I just try to approach every opportunity on stage, as if it's my first time and my last time.

I feel like I represent every young dancer, and even non-dancer, who felt they were not accepted by the ballet world. I'd like to think that they can see themselves in me.

There are muscles that we have in our feet that most human beings don't even know that we have. The strength that we have is so detailed.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

Being able to endure is sometimes the key to survival.

Life as we know it, with all its ups and downs, will soon be over. We all will give an accounting to God of how we have lived.

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

Choose the kids. There will be plenty of time later to choose work.

More and more I find I want to be living in a Big Here and a Long Now.

Well, there are always those who cannot distinguish between glitter and glamour . . . the glamour of Isadora Duncan came from her great, torn, bewildered, foolhardy soul.

Things are in their essence what we choose to make them. A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at it.

Teachers must be celebrated for moving civilization from ignorance to enlightenment, from apathy to responsibility.

Even a poor man can receive honors.