Amy Purdy

Growing up in the hot Last Vegas desert, all I wanted was to be free. I would daydream about traveling the world, living in a place where it snowed, and I would picture all of the stories that I would go on to tell.

You don't always have to have the most amazing story. It's learning to share the story you have that counts.

I'm learning how strong I am, how resilient I am. I'm learning my weaknesses.

Dancers know how to move their arms and their hands. But I don't know the first thing about how to move my arms and hands gracefully.

A lot of times, people think 'para' as far as 'paralyzed.' 'Para' means 'alongside,' so the Paralympics are alongside the Olympics on the same courses, the same hills.

If we can see past preconceived limitations, then the possibilities are endless.

The thing with prosthetic feet is you can't have all this crazy motion, or you'd be all over the place - because it's mechanical, and it's outside your body.

It's when I compare myself to what other people are able to do that I run into trouble. It is a bummer. I just constantly try to put things into perspective.

We did everything we could to save my legs, and it just came to a point where if we didn't amputate my legs, I wouldn't survive. In that situation, you kind of go into survival mode, and you find strength.

I guess I'm always up for a challenge.

We've all seen that every challenge we've gone through, we've learned something from. It's not getting hung up on the challenges but figuring out how to get ahead.

We all have things that limit us and that challenge us. But really, our real limitations are the ones we believe.