Misty Copeland

Depending on the level you're at in your company, the higher you go up in rank, usually the longer you can dance.

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.

I think I get almost every piece of clothing that I buy altered and taken in just to fit me exactly the way it should.

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 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.

Finding ballet was like finding this missing piece of myself.

The Firebird' just symbolizes a lot for me and my career. It was one of the first really big principal roles that I was ever given an opportunity to dance with American Ballet Theatre, and it was a huge step for the African-American community, I think, within the classical ballet world.

I've gotten nothing but warmth from the Black community and positive feedback.

My childhood is a part of my story, and it's why I'm who I am today and why my career is what it is.

My family didn't have very much money, so ballet wasn't even on my radar; I just found it randomly when I was 13 at a Boys & Girls Club. We were practicing in a basketball court in gym clothes with some old socks on. Even though it terrified me at first, I found that I really liked it.

I was the first person in my family who was ever interested in dance, or fine art of any kind for that matter - I came from a very humble beginning in San Pedro, California.

As a child, I had been told that I was exactly what a ballerina should be.