disability Quotes

“I’m always amazed at how adults assume I can’t hear. They talk about me as if I’m invisible . . . I learn quite a bit this way.”

“I cling to my anger with every ounce of humanity left in my ruined body, but it’s no use. It slips away, like a wave from shore. I am pondering this sad fact when I realize the blackness of sleep is circling my head. It’s been there awhile, biding its time and growing closer with each revolution”

“I have never spoken one single word. I am almost eleven years old.”

“So that was it. And you were trying to tell Caddy and you couldn’t tell her. You wanted to, but you couldn’t, could you. Of course Caddy wont. Of course Caddy wont. Just wait till I dress.”

“So that was it. And you were trying to tell Caddy and you couldn’t tell her. You wanted to, but you couldn’t, could you. Of course Caddy wont. Of course Caddy wont. Just wait till I dress.”

“All of us who have all our faculties intact are just plain blessed. Melody is able to figure out things, communicate, and manage in a world where nothing works right for her. She’s the one with the true intelligence!”

“His skin was dead looking and hairless; dropsical too, he moved with a shambling gait like a trained bear. His hair was pale and fine. It had been brushed smoothly down upon his brow like that of children in daguerrotypes. His eyes were clear, of the pale sweet blue of cornflowers, his thick mouth hung open, drooling a little.”

“I still couldn’t get over the fact that I was part of the team. Okay. Truth. There was the team, and there was me, and we were in the same room. But we weren’t quite a team. They appreciated the fact that I usually got the answers right but . . . lots of the preparation involved fast-and-furious, back-and-forth discussions, and I had trouble adding anything to what was being said—most of the time.”

“We all have disabilities. What’s yours?”

“I know the NAME of her condition, Doctor . . . But a person is so much more than the name of a diagnosis on a chart!”

“It’s like I live in a cage with no door and no key. And I have no way to tell someone how to get me out.”

“Talk. I pointed to my board. I hit the word again and again. Talk. Talk. Talk. I have so much to say.”

“By the time she returns, I have managed to undo three buttons on my other shirt. Not bad for gnarled fingers. I’m rather pleased with myself. Brain and body, both in working order.”

“all the poets wanted to get disability insurance it was better than immortality.”

The noble lord, confined to his armchair, would have given his whole fortune to be able to travel around the world, in ten years even; and he bet four thousand pounds on Phileas Fogg.

“Nonsense! Laura, I’ve told you never, never to use that word. Why, you’re not crippled, you just have a little defect - hardly noticeable, even! When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it - develop charm - and vivacity and - charm! That’s all you have to do!”

“Aw, come on, Doodle. You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody else when you start school?”

″...one evening in November that year, shortly after the birth of my daughter, Lucy, I started to think about black holes as I was getting into bed. My disability makes this rather a slow process, so I had plenty of time.”

“Right there was our catch-22: Because the country was so inaccessible, disabled people had a hard time getting out and doing things—which made us invisible. So we were easy to discount and ignore. Until institutions were forced to accommodate us we would remain locked out and invisible—and as long as we were locked out and invisible, no one would see our true force and would dismiss us.”

“The next day the Los Angeles Times reported on the event and quoted Representative Patricia Schroeder: What we did for civil rights in the 1960s we forgot to do for people with disabilities.”