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.
If you would ask me at 15 years old if I would have traded prosthetics for flesh and bone legs, I wouldn't have hesitated for a second. I aspired to that kind of normalcy back then. But if you ask me today, I'm not so sure.
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.
I like that Pilates compromises the mind and body. It's not just about being able to run around the block a few times. It's about alleviating stress and controlling breathing. It's about being balanced.
If you're an athlete and you completely focus on the body, you're missing other components. Similarly, if you're trying to broaden your mind but not also being attentive to your sense of humour and your spirit, then you're not going to grow and develop so fast.
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?
The legs that I have made are far more perfect than the ones nature would have given me - my mother's side of the family have awful legs.
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.
If you watch any John Hughes film of the eighties, that was my childhood experience.
When I'm curious about something, I do it full on and take it as far as I go, but when I feel like I've really explored it, I'm OK with putting it aside and going on to something else.
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.
When I watch 'Mad Men' and I see the patronising attitudes to women that are so shocking for all of us to watch now, I feel that I've lived and see the same evolution in this regard around disability.
In athletics, the idea of possibility is presumed. It's not 'if;' it's 'how.'
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.
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.
'Triumph over tragedy' - how pathetic! I think people are generally freaked out that I'm multifaceted. You don't hear people saying, 'Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar - and she's blonde!'
A couple of years ago, I had my DNA sequencing done, and it is all anonymous. When the results came back, my musculature type said, 'most likely to be a sprinter.'
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.
