Misty Copeland Quotes

At age 14, coming to the U.S., all I knew was American Ballet Theatre, Baryshnikov, Nureyev, and some of the European companies. I barely knew anything about Balanchine.

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

After I finished 'Center Stage,' I went back to San Francisco, and I danced for seven seasons with the San Francisco Ballet.

The classical ballet world is so exclusive and small, and a lot of people don't know about it.

I had some ballet training but didn't like it. It was like a game to me.

It's nice for me to have a ballet as a kind of platform for creativity, because unlike modern dance or contemporary dance or downtown dance, ballet is formalized, and there's something orthodox about it that I like. I like that there's less emphasis on subversion and innovation. I actually think that my musical vernacular or my musical voice is also less inclined toward innovation and subversion. I think I'm a traditionalist.

I'm a classical ballet dancer, and at the end of the day I want to be with American Ballet Theater, performing classical ballets.

Apparently, I have good feet for ballet.

In 1998, Vanity Fair asked me to write a big piece for them on the 50th anniversary of the New York City Ballet. My life, to a great extent, had been spent at and with the New York City Ballet, and I decided to try it. It was very scary, writing about something I loved so much and had such strong opinions about.

With classical ballet you are literally injuring yourself.

Certainly, when you train as a classical dancer, you are very much influenced by 'Giselle.' You see it all the time; you start to learn the steps a little.

The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15.

The heart of the classical repertory is the Tchaikovsky-Petipa 'Sleeping Beauty,' and no ballet is harder to get right.

I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.'

I knew I wanted to be a ballet dancer, but what kind, I wasn't sure. My two dream companies had been New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater.

I think ballet is pretty open about what music is used, actually.

Ballet is the fairies' baseball.

I think that I'm so fortunate to have found classical ballet. It completely changed my life and it shaped the person that I am today, on and off the stage.

It is a fact that all the ballet's fundamental dance steps are derived from the folk dances of Western Europe.

Pointe shoes are torture devices. I mean, ballerinas get used to it, but it was definitely a new experience for me. They feel medieval. I was very happy to stop wearing them.

Ballet: men wearing pants so tight that you can tell what religion they are.

I grew up in Honolulu. It's not the ballet cultural mecca by any stretch of the imagination. People are much more familiar with hula than they are with ballet.

Point shoes are torture devices.

Ballet technique never becomes easy, it becomes possible

Just as a child, before I ever knew what ballet was, there was something in me where I was always searching for something structured, something that was bigger than me, and something so historical that I could be a part of. I didn't find that until I stepped into the ballet world, and it was overwhelming, the feeling of being a part of something that's bigger than you.