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For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We're not real people. We are there to inspire.

If I can be an inspiration for someone, that's fine, but just don't look down on me. Don't say, 'Oh, you're in a wheelchair.'

It feels amazing to be a role model for people with and without disabilities.

My message is not just to disabled people, but to everyone: You have to work hard.

When you hear the word 'disabled,' people immediately think about people who can't walk or talk or do everything that people take for granted. Now, I take nothing for granted. But I find the real disability is people who can't find joy in life and are bitter.

When you are young, you cannot imagine being disabled. You imagine you would conquer it somehow. As I've got older, I can imagine it; I can see how life narrows in. I feel compassion for my mother now.

Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you're needed by someone.

I use the term 'disabled people' quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what's called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses.

For me, and for many other people with disabilities, our status as disabled people is one of which we are fiercely proud.

I'm definitely more understanding of people who have disabilities and who are suffering.