Quotes from Aimee Mullins

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.

The Pentagon isn't a place that champions individuality and innovation.

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

Walking the runway with Alexander McQueen, I really had to dig deep. You're with Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. I was the first person out on the runway, but I thought, 'I have done the Olympics, I can do this.'

From an identity standpoint, what does it mean to have a disability? Pamela Anderson has more prosthetic in her body than I do. Nobody calls her disabled.

There's an important difference and distinction between the objective medical fact of my being an amputee and the subjective societal opinion of whether or not I'm disabled. Truthfully, the only real and consistent disability I've had to confront is the world ever thinking that I could be described by those definitions.

Adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It's part of our life. I think of it like my shadow — sometimes I see a lot of it, sometimes there's very little, but it's always with me.

Confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can have. It's much sexier than any body part.

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.'

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?

I haven't had an easy life, but at some point, you have to take responsibility for yourself and shape who it is that you want to be. I have no time for moaners. I like to chase my dreams and surround myself with other people who are chasing their dreams, too.

Adversity is just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.

I've said this before, but I believe more than ever that confidence is sexier than any body part.

I think that everyone has something about themselves that they feel is their weakness... their 'disability.' And I'm certain we all have one, because I think of a disability as being anything which undermines our belief and confidence in our own abilities.

I didn't see how wearing prosthetics was quite so different from being born with flaming red hair in a crowd of black-haired babies, or being of a different religion from that of every other child in your area.

In athletics, the idea of possibility is presumed. It's not 'if;' it's 'how.'

Whether it is your height, your weight or your skin, someone is going to pick on something and make fun of it. My legs were just a more obvious target.

Adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It's part of our life.

I want to be a Bond girl. Think about it - I have metal components in my legs, so when I go through airport security, I set off the alarms. But when they realize why I'm beeping, they let me through. What if I had weapons in my legs? I could take one off and pull out an Uzi! Legs Galore - that would be me!

The best beauty secret, besides sleep and plenty of water, is do whatever it is - before you go out, before you need to feel beautiful - do whatever makes you feel confident. If it's putting on a great dance record and rocking out in your apartment, do it. If kissing someone for 10 minutes makes you feel confident, do it.

At some point in every person's life, you will need an assisted medical device - whether it's your glasses, your contacts, or as you age and you have a hip replacement or a knee replacement or a pacemaker. The prosthetic generation is all around us.

Life is about making your own happiness - and living by your own rules.

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

Pamela Anderson has more prosthetic in her body than I do. Nobody calls her disabled.