Disability Perception Quotes

You know, some people think since I can't move I am a vegetable. Wrong. Just picture yourself as you are, just always sitting down and if you need something a hot babe takes care of you. I am exaggerating a little, but this is how I see it.

For me, the wheelchair symbolizes disability in a way a cane does not.

Being deaf or having any disability is not tragic. But the stereotypes about it are tragic.

It's undeniable that what we are taught as a culture to believe about disability is at odds with traditional notions of masculinity.

There’s an important difference and distinction between the objective medical fact of my being an amputee and the subjective societal opinion of whether or not I’m disabled. Truthfully, the only real and consistent disability I’ve had to confront is the world ever thinking that I could be described by those definitions.

People like Ellie Simmonds, David Weir, and Hannah Cockroft have become superstars alongside the likes of Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis. I think it has changed attitudes to disability.

When you hear the word 'disabled,' people immediately think about people who can't walk or talk or do everything that people take for granted. Now, I take nothing for granted. But I find the real disability is people who can't find joy in life and are bitter.

I hate the words 'handicapped' and 'disabled'. They imply that you are less than whole. I don't see myself that way at all.

I think that's where it comes into play, when you are just looking at a document or whatever and you see the word "disability." Does that automatically trigger something in you that denies someone their personhood?

And I found out about the wonderful world of sign language. I suddenly realized: If we as a society recognize Jewish culture, gay culture and Latino culture, we must recognize that this is a coherent culture, too. I think deafness is a disability for social constructionist reasons.

I like to say that the greatest handicap of deafness does not lie in the ear, it lies in the mind. I hope that through my example, such as my role on 'The West Wing,' I can help change attitudes on deafness and prove we can really do everything... except hear.

You're not disabled unless you say 'I'm disabled.'

Do you know, it's funny, but I never thought of being blind as a disadvantage, and I never thought of being black as a disadvantage.

It was ability that mattered, not disability, which is a word I'm not crazy about using.

If everything was perfect, it would always be a person-first conversation, but whenever I have the opportunity, I lead with my personality. If they're looking and seeing the disability first or the chair first, I know that I have the ability to change that.

For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We're not real people. We are there to inspire.

I have understood by observing blind people that they are very confident. They don't see themselves as suffering from a disability.

We aren't handicapped in any way except by what other people think. Focus on people's abilities. I can't be on 'American Idol,' but there's all kinds of stuff I can do.

We're normal people. Don't be scared because we are in a chair. People don't understand that. They think, 'Oh, a wheelchair, something's wrong with their heads, something's just not right.' Well yeah, we may be a little twisted, but no more than anyone else.

The world worries about disability more than disabled people do.

We think we know what it's all about; we think that disability is a really simple thing, and we don't expect to see disabled people in our daily lives.

Disability in the Middle East is viewed through a different lens because you're in wartime countries where it's much more mainstream, so I was just never 'other'd.

Children born with Down Syndrome are not vegetables, nor are their lives demonstrably not worth living.

Call yourself and define your relationship to your chair the way you want to, or your disability the way you want to.

I grew up not really thinking I had a disability. I grew up thinking I had different shoes.