“Every time I step onto the stage, it's not only proving to the audienc...” — Misty Copeland Quote

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

“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.”

“Growing up, I was surrounded by R&B and Hip-Hop, and the closest thing I could find to dance was gymnastics which I watched on TV. So, I just used those avenues I found available right in my milieu to express what was inside of me.”

“I say over and over again that I am just standing on the shoulders of so many who have set this path for me, and they may not be seen or recognized or have been given an opportunity to have a voice, but I'm here representing all of those dancers. Dance Theatre of Harlem Virginia Johnson, Tai Jimenez, Lauren Anderson.”

“The ballet world I don't think is an art form that is quick to change or to adjust or evolve.”

“I sometimes have moments of such despair, such despair … Because in those moments I start to think that I will never be capable of beginning to live a real life; because I have already begun to think that I have lost all sense of proportion, all sense of the real and the actual; because, what is more, I have cursed myself; because my nights of fantasy are followed by hideous moments of sobering! And all the time one hears the human crowd swirling and thundering around one in the whirlwind of life, one hears, one sees how people live—that they live in reality, that for them life is not something forbidden, that their lives are not scattered for the winds like dreams or visions but are forever in the process of renewal, forever young, and that no two moments in them are ever the same; while how dreary and monotonous to the point of being vulgar is timorous fantasy, the slave of shadow, of the idea...”

“We are unable to discount the hypotheses that the world began three years ago.”

“Space and time are only concepts; neither actually exists. If you can’t gain salvation on this very spot, then it will be beyond your reach no matter where you go.”

“Is it possible that Earth is my exile, and somewhere else in this vast universe is my home? That observable universe is my cage, and beyond it is where I actually originate, eliminating any kind of memory and time?”