Amy Purdy

Yes, there are things that I can't change, but the things I can, I'm going to do everything in my power to work very hard through them and come out stronger on the other side.

I want to live a fulfilling life.

I feel that losing both my legs was a blessing. It was meant to happen to me: I wouldn't have had the opportunity to touch so many lives in such a positive way.

As humans, we need to reach out for support.

I grew up born and raised in Las Vegas and actually grew up skiing. You know, we've got some ski resorts close to Las Vegas, up in Mount Charleston or Brian Head, so I grew up skiing and snowboarding.

Dancing is about expressing yourself, and the more walls you let down, the better.

When I turned 16 and got my license, the Chevy Blazer was passed down from my sister, so it was very much a starter car.

I'm very grateful that I've had the opportunities I've had.

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.

At the age of 19, the day after I graduated high school, I moved to a place where it snowed, and I became a massage therapist. With this job, all I needed were my hands and my massage table by my side and I could go anywhere. For the first time in my life, I felt free, independent, and completely in control of my life.

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.

I believe inspiration is contagious.

I'm a big oatmeal fan. For my every-morning breakfast, I will do oatmeal with cinnamon, goat's milk or even butter, with apples and raisins, and then I'll maybe do some eggs, say two poached eggs with that.

I always say snowboarding saved my life. It gave me a reason to focus on the future; it gave me something to be passionate about.

I tried snowboarding at 14, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I snowboarded every day off I had, every weekend I had off of school, every holiday we had off from school, and it became a huge part of my life, not just what I love to do, but really just kind of who I was.

After I lost my legs, I got invited to my old high school, and I shared my stories with all the classes. I remember I was so nervous and didn't know where to start, but I knew I had information they could take away.

I knew what I didn't want. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me. I didn't want people to see me as disabled. I wanted to live a life of adventure and stories.

To be able to walk down the street and have people stop you, not just because they recognize you, but because you somehow personally touched them, it's amazing.

That's the problem with bacterial meningitis: it progresses really fast. You think you have the flu, and they say within 15 hours it's severely deadly - for sure within the first 24 hours - but even the first 15 hours.

If somebody would've told me that I was going to lose my legs at the age of 19, I would've thought there's absolutely no way I'd be able to handle that. But then it happened, and I realized that there's so much more to live for, that my life isn't about my legs.