Abby Lee Miller

My name is not unfamiliar to anybody in the dance community. I'm talking the upper echelon of dance studios.

I teach children to be winners.

I'm an only child.

I didn't have any children of my own.

I just have always felt that people don't change, circumstances change.

So many people think of me as a character on TV, but first and foremost, my passion is teaching dance and creating employable, working dancers.

It takes me about two hours to run into Target. People always want a picture. They hem and haw, and they can't spit the words out, so they waste about five minutes of my time just standing there getting ready for a picture. Just do it!

When I tell a child something the first time, I'm nice. The 15th time, I start to get aggravated.

I've always put everybody else's child first before my own health, before my own outfit, before my own time frame.

I was never focused on me, me, me all the time. I was always focused on somebody else.

I have spent so much time and so much energy making other people's children stars.

If I could have worked from the time I was born until I was 18 and never had to work again, I would have done it.