I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 29, and I thought it was because I'm in a wheelchair. And I realized that it's not that, it's because I listened to what the dismissive part of society was telling me and accepted it as truth. There was nothing that was keeping me from dating or falling in love other than the fact that I was scared of being rejected. And everybody has that fear. That's a universal thing.

I do a lot of conferences, and I did a campaign with the Cerebral Palsy Foundation called "Just Say Hi." They get celebrities to record little messages about how you start a conversation with someone who has a disability, which is to "Just say hi."

There's a tendency to treat anyone with a physical disability as inspiring. I call it a pedestal of prejudice, in that you're lifting people up to dismiss them. My whole thing is bringing us down to everyone else's level and saying we're all the same. The struggle is the same.

Everyone who was here [Sheraton Universal Hotel] when I won still works here, so the two biggest moments in my career are intersecting. It's so cool that I can say "hi" to everybody.

I'm currently doing a Soul Pancake show called Top of the Monday, which is basically a good morning news show. It's just me being silly, telling people about good news that's going on in the world, putting them in the mood to start their week.

Technically I can get out of my wheelchair and crawl around and do things, but when I've traveled and they've lost my wheelchair in transit, I feel like I need to be bound to it. My functionality and autonomy are often bound to this.

I feel that religion can be used as a tool to guide your life and help you connect with other people.