Disability Pride Quotes

I don't see myself as disabled. There's nothing I can't do that able-bodied athletes can do.

I think one in five Americans has a disability of some sort. That's 20% of the population, and yet we rarely ever see people with disabilities on-screen, and their stories and their resilience and their zest for life and their humor and their humanity.

The arrogance of the able-bodied is staggering. Yes, maybe we'd like to be able to get places quickly, and carry things in both hands but only because we have to keep up with the rest of you ... We would rather be just like us, and have that be all right.

So I'm half deaf - and dyslexic. How about that? Nobody's perfect, and I'm proud of my defects.

Watch me when people say deaf and dumb, or deaf mute, and I give them a look like you might get if you called Denzel Washington the wrong name.

I have learned not to overlook the advantages of being me. From when I was a softball player, and I held the stolen bases record. I would slide into second with my prostheses, and the girl on the base could either step aside or meet two wooden sticks.

The founding of Graeae by disabled actors was a huge political statement that you forgot at your peril.

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.

The night before my amputation, my former basketball coach brought me a magazine with an article on an amputee who ran in the New York Marathon. It was then I decided to meet this new challenge head on and not only overcome my disability, but conquer it in such a way that I could never look back and say it disabled me.

I may be paralyzed from the waist down, but unlike Gray Davis, I'm not paralyzed from the neck up.

I never in a million years thought I would be able to be a Paralympic athlete.

When FDR died in 1945, he was still paralyzed from the waist down. After he died, his portrait was put on the dime. Through his illness, he went out of his way to minimize his difficulties. Of the thousands of pictures taken of him, only two show him in a leg brace or a wheelchair.

I am truly humbled. Not only that I am going to be known as the final Top Model but as a final Top Model who is deaf! And that is an amazing tagline. This proves that deaf people can do anything and everything.

For me, I never ever felt the ownership or any identity with any community of disabilities. I didn't grow up being told that I was a disabled child.

Look! I can't even wear glasses because my ear is missing. I'm hardcore! I'm hardcore!

Being disabled doesn't mean you have a disadvantage

I got nominated for a Tony, which was a complete surprise. It was an experience that I will always cherish.

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

The whole community of people with disabilities was alive, politically alive. I give Justin Dart credit for that. He traveled to every state in the country. He really made people with disabilities understand that they had some political power.

I have a very simple philosophy. One has to separate the abilities from the disabilities. The fact I cannot walk, that I need crutches or a scooter or whatever it is, has nothing to do with my playing the violin.

When I first had my legs amputated, it was hard for me to be positive and feel pretty. Many people don't know that someone with a disability can be strong and beautiful and successful as an athlete.

I would certainly not want my child to be schizophrenic. I wouldn't want him or her to be a criminal either. If, on the other hand, I had a deaf child, it would help that I have developed a real admiration for Deaf culture.

I'm ready to take the world by storm and have them look at me and say, 'Deaf people can dance.'

For me, Paralympic sport isn't about being the best human being. It's about being the best human being with that particular level of disability.

People get all up in arms when I describe myself as a crip because what they hear is the word 'cripple,' and they hear a word you're not allowed to say anymore.