Aimee Mullins

“I grew up in a town with a great wrestling tradition. Then I was a team sport queen in high school; I played softball, volleyball, and soccer. Oh, and I also did ski racing.”

“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.”

“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.”

“With L'Oreal, I get to be Aimee Mullins, model. No qualifier. And that means everything to me.”

“It's society that disables an individual by not investing in enough creativity to allow for someone to show us the quality that makes them rare and valuable and capable.”

“I have found great power in taking my 'difference' out for a spin in a very public way. And usually, the worst, most personally embarrassing thing you imagine in your mind is often not anywhere near as bad in real life.”

“Beauty is not skin-deep; it can be a means of self-affirmation, a true indicator of personality and confidence.”

“I have learned not to overlook the advantages of being me. From when I was a softball player, and I held the stolen bases record. I would slide into second with my prostheses, and the girl on the base could either step aside or meet two wooden sticks.”

“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.”

“Part of the reason I wanted to model was to push the boundaries and challenge the perceptions of what a beautiful body is supposed to look like. Why should I feel any differently about looking good than anyone else?”

“It's hard enough for women to walk on high heels. And I'm on stilts!”

“We all bullet point our triumphs, but I am who I am because of everything you don't see on my CV. The stuff that doesn't work out teaches you how to trust your instincts and adapt.”

“I was once told that I had become too confident and that it made me less likeable. Many successful people will get this at some point, because the people who haven't followed a similar path can be threatened by someone who has and is unabashed about it.”

“I hate the words 'handicapped' and 'disabled'. They imply that you are less than whole. I don't see myself that way at all.”

“People presume my disability has to do with being an amputee, but that's not the case; our insecurities are our disabilities, and I struggle with those as does everyone.”

“I'll be giving a speech at the randomest place, like a bank or something, and a guy in a suit will say, 'I'm totally freaked out that I'm talking to the girl from 'Cremaster.' For the rest of my life, that movie will be playing in a museum somewhere. I never could have expected that huge response.”

“A lot of my life is about will - having the will to prove what my body can do.”

“True beauty is when someone radiates that they like themselves.”

“I didn't want to be written about as a human-interest story. I didn't want to be a passing thing. You know, now we move on to the fat girl who had her stomach stapled. I didn't want to become a gimmick: the disabled model.”

“Kids are naturally curious about what they don't know, or don't understand, or what is foreign to them. They only learn to be frightened of those differences when an adult influences them to behave that way and censors that natural curiosity.”