Stella Young Quotes

I don't know what it's like to be an arm amputee, or have even one flesh-and-bone leg, or to have cerebral palsy. I don't speak for such huge and diverse groups. What I've tried to do, what I've been fortunate to do, is to live my live and create my life as I've wanted to create it.

I feel bad for people in wheelchairs and people who have to use crutches.

If we see someone in a wheelchair, we assume they cannot walk. It may be that they can walk three, four, five steps. That, to them, means they can walk.

I've always found people with physical disabilities interesting to watch: how the dynamics of their body work, what makes them move this way or that.

You can really do amazing things in a wheelchair. It's very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, but you can even go up and down stairs in a wheelchair.

I live my life like everyone else; everyone has their own obstacles. Mine is deafness.

I really love filling out forms - quite fortuitous, really, given that as one of Australia's 4 million-ish disabled people, ticking boxes and recording my life for other people is what I've spent a fair chunk of my time doing.

I think it was hard at first for my dad to transition to being immobile.

Obviously, because of my disability, I need assistance. But I have always tried to overcome the limitations of my condition and lead as full a life as possible. I have traveled the world, from the Antarctic to zero gravity.

I am not the paraplegic seated permanently in his chair or the able-bodied person on her feet. Identity for a hemiplegic is a shifty thing.

Some people are walking around with full use of their bodies and they're more paralyzed than I am.

Of course I read Braille, yes.

We want to galvanize people's imaginations. With enough political will and investment, we could make wheelchairs obsolete.

I figure this current era of history is the one with the best chance of quality of life for a black, female, disabled, middle-aged, queer person who's most comfortable not fitting in. The odds still aren't great, mind you. But I'll take my chances with the 21st century.

I don't think of myself as being disabled, or able-bodied.

I took my sight and mobility for granted.

They see me wheeling around in a beautiful gown, and they realize you can look elegant, and you can lead a happy life in a wheelchair. I know I've helped handicapped people, because I've received many comments.

As a wheelchair user, you can't move about freely. That's the only thing that bothers me a little. When I'm in the Euro Group in Brussels, colleagues who want to talk to me have to come to me. But I hope they know that this has nothing to do with arrogance.

Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!

I've had journalists asking me, 'What do we call you - is it handicapped, are you disabled, physically challenged?' I said, 'Well hopefully you could just call me Aimee. But if you have to describe it, I'm a bilateral below-the-knee amputee.'

Labor should not be about creating monuments on hills or statues in parks. Labor's monuments and statues are when a young person can find a job, when a person with disability can get access to the ordinary life that others take for granted.

We fill our lives with all sorts of things that make it easier for us to get along in the world: wheelchairs, crutches, grabber sticks, hearing aids, canes, guide dogs, modified vehicles, ramps, as well as other kinds of services and supports. Disability does not necessarily mean dependence on other people.

Disabled people need more invested in their education, housing, job training, transportation, assistive technology, and independent-living facilities. Governments earn back this investment - and more - by making people with disabilities economically productive citizens.

We all learn how to use the bodies we're born with, or learn to use them in an adjusted state, whether those bodies are considered disabled or not.

The thing about living with any disability is that you adapt; you do what works for you.