Aimee Mullins Quotes

By far, the most disabling thing in my life is the physical environment. It dictates what I can and can't do every day.

I really love filling out forms - quite fortuitous, really, given that as one of Australia's 4 million-ish disabled people, ticking boxes and recording my life for other people is what I've spent a fair chunk of my time doing.

I don't think of myself as being disabled, or able-bodied.

Obviously, because of my disability, I need assistance. But I have always tried to overcome the limitations of my condition and lead as full a life as possible. I have traveled the world, from the Antarctic to zero gravity.

I am not the paraplegic seated permanently in his chair or the able-bodied person on her feet. Identity for a hemiplegic is a shifty thing.

My best advice to anybody who has a child with a disability is to really find the tools for that person to thrive and find what their true passions are, because the rest will follow.

All my life I been doin' what people tell me to do. Now, I'm telling them.

I was kind of raised with the suggestion that I had a duty to do; that life was real, life was earnest. And I hated that, actually. I needed to be liberated, to be told that I could live the life that I wanted to live; that I didn't need a job, or to be shouted at; that I could be myself; that I could be happy.

The fact is, Latinos now own their own lives and I believe they can afford to look back without judgment.

Doctors are not fortune tellers, and neither am I. Having lived with disability since birth does not afford me immunity from illness.

I want young people to know that they can belong - whatever your culture, your religion, your sexuality - that you can live life how you want to live it and feel comfortable how you are.

I feel bad for people in wheelchairs and people who have to use crutches.

I'm just living my life, and I'm not gonna live my life for other people.

I've learned not to let people judge me in how I want to live my life. Every single woman is an individual, and there's no one path. You just have to take the path that you think is right for you.

They see me wheeling around in a beautiful gown, and they realize you can look elegant, and you can lead a happy life in a wheelchair. I know I've helped handicapped people, because I've received many comments.

Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!

I've had journalists asking me, 'What do we call you - is it handicapped, are you disabled, physically challenged?' I said, 'Well hopefully you could just call me Aimee. But if you have to describe it, I'm a bilateral below-the-knee amputee.'

I posed nude to show my parents they couldn't dictate to me any more - that I control my life.

My life choices are not supposed to be the gateway to somebody else's. That's my journey.

I care so much about making things that are useful for people to have and listen to, but I don't care so much that I won't do whatever the hell I want. It's just one of those things.

It's your body, your life. Do what you want to do.

People gonna be they own individuals and have they own worlds and I can't knock it.

If we see someone in a wheelchair, we assume they cannot walk. It may be that they can walk three, four, five steps. That, to them, means they can walk.

We all learn how to use the bodies we're born with, or learn to use them in an adjusted state, whether those bodies are considered disabled or not.

In my own home, where I've been able to create an environment that works for me, I'm hardly disabled at all. I still have an impairment, and there are obviously some very restrictive things about that, but the impact of disability is less.