There are lessons in everything. The bad, the good. Our job is to listen, and to continue to learn, so that maybe we get better at this. Maybe get better at life.

Each and every one of us has the capacity to be an oppressor. I want to encourage each and everyone of us to interrogate how we might be an oppressor and how we might be able to become liberators for ourselves and for each other.

I believe if we have something that we love to do, that can save our lives. That can get us through.

We are not what other people say we are. We are who we know ourselves to be, and we are what we love. That's okay.

Whether you're transgender or not, most of us get to a point in our lives where we can no longer lie to ourselves.

I would never be so arrogant to think that someone should model their life after me. But the idea of possibility the idea that I get to live my dreams out in public, hopefully will show to other folks that it's possible. So I prefer the term 'possibility model' to 'role model.'

Beyoncé says it was Mathew Knowles, her father, who made her understand discipline and work ethic, what it means to come in early before class starts to stretch, or to work on your dégagés or your pirouettes or whatever it was. I was a turner! So to come in early and then to stay afterward and to just soak up everything that the teacher has, that's really what it's about - the striving for excellence.