I don't see myself as disabled. There's nothing I can't do that able-bodied athletes can do.
I love it now that a large minority of people who are handicapped prefer to call themselves crippled. This is all part of the game, like queer theory.
I don't really have Down's syndrome; I just have a slight case of it.
The arrogance of the able-bodied is staggering. Yes, maybe we'd like to be able to get places quickly, and carry things in both hands but only because we have to keep up with the rest of you ... We would rather be just like us, and have that be all right.
For me, the wheelchair symbolizes disability in a way a cane does not.
Being deaf or having any disability is not tragic. But the stereotypes about it are tragic.
Being blind is as simple as closing your eyes. The blind don't act any different than you or I. You never see a blind person going around saying, 'I'm blind.' So if you want to play blind just close your eyes and keep them closed and fare thee well.
I didn't know anything was wrong with me when I was growing up. I thought everyone went to occupational and speech therapy, I thought these were common things. I thought I was quite normal until I went to school and someone told me it wasn't normal to have a disability.
Nothing like quoting Silence of the Lambs for people to question what kind of disability you have.
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.'
For me, I never ever felt the ownership or any identity with any community of disabilities. I didn't grow up being told that I was a disabled child.
You're not disabled unless you say 'I'm disabled.'
If everything was perfect, it would always be a person-first conversation, but whenever I have the opportunity, I lead with my personality. If they're looking and seeing the disability first or the chair first, I know that I have the ability to change that.
I just see myself as a driver. The disability plays a part but I don't see myself as disabled.
Before taking up dressage, I'd distanced myself from the Paralympics because I hadn't wanted to be defined by my disability. Then when I grew up and got an office job, things started to change. I'm actually allergic to horses, but I'm even more allergic to paperwork!
I used to think of myself in terms of who I'd be if I didn't have this pesky old disability.
I don't think of myself as being disabled, or able-bodied.
Call yourself and define your relationship to your chair the way you want to, or your disability the way you want to.
I’m the archetype of a disabled genius, or should I say a physically challenged genius, to be politically correct. At least I’m obviously physically challenged. Whether I’m a genius is more open to doubt.
For me, disability is a physical experience, but it's also a cultural experience and a social experience, and for me, the word 'crip' is the one that best encapsulated all of that.
The sentiment of those suggesting the Olympics and Paralympics be combined is no doubt well intentioned. But it also echoes the myth that disabled people want to be other than what we are - that we'd like nothing more than to be 'allowed in' with the able-bodied competitors.
I don't generally talk about medical terms when I discuss my position as a disabled person. I take a social rather than medical approach to disability, and so long Latin names for congenital conditions are not relevant.
I don't feel disabled, and I think everybody makes their own way in life.
If I woke up and didn't have Tourette's syndrome, it would feel weird - not better or worse, just different.
If you got a disability or a handicap, that means you're limited to certain things. And I don't feel like I'm limited to nothing. I can do anything anybody else can do.
