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

The people who criticise you will not be the ones taking care of your legs when you are in your wheelchair. People who never drove a car in these conditions, they just don't know.

As a wheelchair user, you can't move about freely. That's the only thing that bothers me a little. When I'm in the Euro Group in Brussels, colleagues who want to talk to me have to come to me. But I hope they know that this has nothing to do with arrogance.

Well, I'm using a cane, so what? So what if they shot me sitting in a wheelchair? That's life!

My disability exists not because I use a wheelchair, but because the broader environment isn't accessible.

I'm a full-time wheelchair user. And yet, given the right circumstances, I am able to work.

Let me make this clear: my impairment is such that without a wheelchair, I can't do very much for myself. I can't get out of bed. I can't get myself to the toilet. I certainly can't get myself to work.

I can't bear the thought of my mother having to push me around in a wheelchair. I'd rather die quickly.

You can really do amazing things in a wheelchair. It's very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, but you can even go up and down stairs in a wheelchair.

I quickly learned that asking if an interview space was wheelchair accessible was a bad idea; it gave a potential employer an immediate bad impression. It was either a black mark against my name, or a straight up discussion of why I wouldn't be able to work there because they had no wheelchair access.