Misty Copeland Quotes

I never knew I wanted to become a ballerina. I was discovered at the age of 13. I had a love for movement even though I had no exposure to dance other than what I saw in music videos, like hip-hop music videos. But I knew that I loved moving.

Choreographers, historically, are born, not made - their talents drive them to it.

I started dancing before I could talk. Other babies learn to stand and then walk - I just danced.

I have a sister who is a dancer and dance teacher. We grew up dancing together. I wanted to become a ballerina when I was a kid, so she and I were always at ballet conservatories and going to school with our hair in buns.

I actually came to New York when I was 12 and did ballet school for a little while. I was being groomed to be professional, and a lot of the professors and teachers there were drawn to me and thought that I could become a professional ballerina.

I don't know to what extent someone can BECOME an artist - you either are or you aren't - and if you are you'll HAVE to make your way to some kind of sickly light, no matter how terrible the soil you were seeded in your nature will out somehow.

Genius is immediate, but talent takes time.

Britain's got talent, enormous talent; that's very obvious.

Writing music is just something that I was born to do.

I love dancing and practiced ballet for ten years until I realized I wouldn't make it professionally - then I started taking salsa classes. I learned to dance samba in Rio and Salvador when I lived in Brazil.

I think it is an inborn talent - just luck. Some people can learn languages; some can throw a ball. Most people have something. My talent is drawing and painting.

I've danced since I was 5 and went to the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center at 7.

I think I tended toward the Russian training because my first teacher taught a version of Vaganova, and it was drilled into me that that was the best system, and also at the time there were a lot of great Russian stars.

My mom was a dance teacher, so she put me in dance school when I was a kid. I did everything. I used to take ballet.

I really developed an early love for ballet. Like most dancers, I am still 'first' a dancer. I'm very proud of it. Once you are a dancer, the physicality never leaves you, nor does the strength. Hopefully, it keeps you like an athlete.

I was very serious about ballet until the age of 12, at which point my body changed, and it wasn't quite right.

You can't make an artist like Lady Gaga. You can help support, you can help develop the vision - I think you can add to the vision - but you just can't make an artist like that. That's like saying Lebron James' high school coach made Lebron James.

Some people have just got a capacity for creativity that's unbelievable!

I never really thought about pursuing singing because my whole life was about dance and singing just kind of came with it.

You can't make a star - they just have it.

I always knew I wanted to dance. I started ballet when I was three years old, and I just knew it was something that I loved and that I wanted to do.

I loved gymnastics, and my gymnastics teacher said ballet was essential to help my dance routines in competitions. I only really went because my friends were going as well. It wasn't this kind of hidden love. Then, slowly, my friends stopped going and I thought, 'I like this. I am going to stay.'

Ballet found me, I guess you could say. I was discovered by a teacher in middle school. I always danced my whole life. I never had any training, never was exposed to seeing dance, but I always had something inside of me. I would love to choreograph and dance around.

Writing is something that comes naturally to me, like acting.

A man is born an artist as a hippopotamus is born a hippopotamus; and you can no more make yourself one than you can make yourself a giraffe.