Without my mentors there is no Misty.

For me, I was in school and I pushed myself to be a good student, just because that's the type of person I was, but I never had a connection to any of it. I don't think my brain functioned in a way that was at its height, when I was in school. I needed something like art to really value the way my mind works. I wasn't reaching my full potential by sitting in a classroom and reading from a book. My mind didn't work that way.

I absolutely love what I do. And I want to dance for as long as I can and feel good about what I'm putting out there on the stage. But my goal has always been to be a principal dancer with ABT. Before I knew that there had never been a black woman, that was always my goal. I wanted to dance Odette-Odile and Kitri and "Don Quixote" and Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty." So that's still my goal. But knowing that it's never been done before, I think makes me fight even harder.

When people meet me in person, they're usually surprised at how petite I am because there's just [an] idea that because I'm black I just look a certain way.

I know that most of the time I have to work overtime to do everything that I want to.

I don't think a lot of people really understand the commitment it takes to being a character that an actor in Hollywood would take to approaching a role that they're doing.

You can dream big and it doesn't matter what you look like, where you come from.