Going on stage and doing ballet, for the first time, was even more verification of, "This is what I'm meant to do. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to make it somehow."

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.

The view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve, my life and my values could not bring me to that.

Let me make this radiantly clear—if you believe in spirits and the metaphysical world, your biology will create the illusion that these things are real.

I'm not an academic; I'm just a bookish Joe who gets passionate about certain writers and suddenly wants to read everything they've ever written and find out why they wrote it.

At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart:And as the last slow sudden drops are shedFrom sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled,So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.

I was at dinner with Gene Wilder and imitated Ethel Barrymore for everyone

Define your business goals clearly so that others can see them as you do.

Instead of running from what you don't want, walk with commitment toward what you desire. Focus on where you are going rather than being obsessed with where you have been.

I'm much too modest a person.

The choir always tittered and whispered all through the service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was.

Approaching a comedy character is fun because you get to sit down with the director and ask, "What makes you laugh?" Then you end up bouncing ideas off each other.