[After the 1990 bus accident] I could not feel my legs, and I knew that I was paralysed. For me, this was a premonition of my worst fate proved right. When I was a child, I always ran up the stairs two at a time, and when I reached the top I would say to myself, one day I won't be able to do this because like my father I will lose the use of my body. Now I knew it had happened. For months afterwards I was locked back in myself, just as I had been when I was a child. But also part of my premonition had always been, strangely, that I would lose my body but in the end it would be all right.

. . . My best friend [as a young girl] made this mole on my face, because she would get in a fight with me and scratch me -- by the third time the scab came of…

I have had a life in which I have had to face every big fear, and it has not been pleasant.

I spent my childhood alone, overweight and ugly, angry at everything, and knowing nothing of a life beyond this sadness.

[After a poor prognosis for recovery from her doctor following her 1990 bus accident] I said if it is up to me, I'm going to be OK.

I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.

Mistakes are part of the game. It's how well you recover from them, that's the mark of a great player.