Going on stage and transcending the audience and becoming this otherworldly thing makes you a dancer. It's not so black and white.

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.

Nothing in this physical world moves from disorder to order without intelligence and energy being applied to it.

We are all human beings with our own little knick-knacks and ways of doing things.

Who needs evidence when you've got the Internet?

If you're pursuing something that you love and you're learning something new, every day, that's the key to youth [staying young].

I love fashion. But I love it in a different way than most people. I'm not obsessed with it. I'm just obsessed with looking good and wearing clothes that make me feel good.

Let us guide our students over the road of discipline from materials, through function, to creative work.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

I began just writing poems and then fell in love with the form.

The first movie I ever saw was a horror movie. It was Bambi. When that little deer gets caught in a forest fire, I was terrified, but I was also exhilarated.

Cheap anti-Americanism will eventually have consequences.