Victoria Arlen Quotes

My mother, Laura Sumner, had cerebral palsy. She was born absolutely fine, but after about three days, she started having convulsions that left her with a condition that would confine her to a wheelchair her entire life.

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

At the time I was asked if I would ever step back in a race car, but what was very important for me was to go into the bathroom and pee on my own, but I could not do that. I had to be helped. That was my number one priority.

I was actually in an iron lung for about a year, and then I was paralysed from the neck down for another year after that. So I spent a lotta time just lying down as a kid. And some of my earliest memories from then are of listening to the radio.

It's factual to say I am a bilateral-below-the-knee amputee. I think it's subjective opinion as to whether or not I am disabled because of that. That's just me.

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.

I've had versions of disability my whole life, first with my hearing and then when I couldn't walk for over a year.

It would be nice to wake up and be able to walk to the bathroom. But even when I was 20 and at the Paris Opera, I had to crawl down the stairs; it is only when I start to work and stretch that my body begins to recover again.

Just because I am wheelchair-bound doesn't mean I don't get around.

Touch a man who can't walk up right, and that lame man, he's gonna fly.

Towards the end of 2003 it was hard to get through training - and the darkest point was when a doctor told me there was a possibility I could end up in a wheelchair.

I think it was hard at first for my dad to transition to being immobile.

I fell and broke my pelvic bone in three places. So, I'm still sort of an invalid now.

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.

I was told as a teenager that I would never walk again.

The flesh and bone leg is just beautiful. It's elegant. You know, when it's working, it's incredible. But if it's not working, well, you know, your life is certainly far from over.

It finally became clear to me that they had no hopes of my ever walking again.

It's an amazing feeling when I have a customer who tries a leg on and is able to go snowboarding for the first time.

I use an electric wheelchair because I have no sense of balance, and muscle spasticity has arched my spine like a cat's, while my legs are really just for show.

I got really, really sick with a horrible disease called transverse myelitis; I lost my legs. I couldn't play anymore. It was a form of multiple sclerosis, which I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

If you're missing three or four limbs, you have special challenges going forward. And the last thing you want is to not be independent in your home.

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 don't know what it's like to be an arm amputee, or have even one flesh-and-bone leg, or to have cerebral palsy. I don't speak for such huge and diverse groups. What I've tried to do, what I've been fortunate to do, is to live my live and create my life as I've wanted to create it.

The hardest thing for me is walking. Can you imagine you've got a metal pole and if you put pressure on it like a strong walk, you can walk.

I still find it strange, I suppose, when I say to someone, 'Can you just pass me my leg?' But I don't ever think about my disability.