Rachel Shenton Quotes

Most profoundly deaf people have speech that is very difficult to understand.

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

I'm hard of hearing. I miss a lot. It's really tough.

I didn't wake up one day and just couldn't hear. I woke up one day and realized I was having difficulty, and that I had overcompensated by lip reading, so that I didn't really understand how bad it was.

You must speak loud to those who are hard of hearing.

[On being deaf:] We must struggle for whatever may be had, without encroaching on the comfort of others.

If the deaf are to hear the sound has to be very loud

I took some classes in sign language when I was in my early teens because I was told that I would be completely deaf very early. But I never really wanted to learn.

I have serious hearing loss. I'm challenged if I don't have my hearing aids in.

I have to constantly remind myself that I am communicating with a person with hearing loss.

I think the biggest misconception is that people think deaf people are not able to do things.

I always say deafness is a silent disability: you can't see, and it's not life-threatening, so it has to touch your life in some way in order for it to be on your radar.

I am a visual person, given that I am deaf.

[On being deaf:] How much less pain there is in calmly estimating the enjoyments from which we must separate ourselves, of bravely saying, for once and for ever, 'Let them go,' than in feeling them waste and dwindle, till their very shadows escape from our grasp!

The late Président de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind--he had been so for such a long time--but I swear that I do not know how to be deaf: I cannot get used to it, and I am as humiliated and distressed by it today as I was during the first week. No philosophy in the world can palliate deafness.

I'm almost completely deaf anyway. So I'm worried. I'm very worried.

I can not remember even thinking that I was deaf when I was dancing.

I was born deaf. I was raised in a hearing world and in a deaf world at the same time. I can't say that I like one better than I like the other. I like them both. I speak pretty well; I gesture. If I don't understand something, you know, pen and paper, texting. I use it all.

I learned to speak first, and then to sign. I have never really known what it was like to hear, so I can't compare hearing aids to normal hearing.

The hearing aids are very helpful for speech reading. Without the hearing aids, my voice becomes very loud, and I cannot control the quality of my voice.

In my normal life, I do not speak with an accent. It's harder for people to realize my hearing loss in everyday life.

But people who think they can project themselves into deafness are mistaken because you can't. And I'm not talking about imagining what a deaf person's whole life is like I even mean just realizing what it is like for an instant.

The only thing I can't do is hear. I can drive, I have a life with four kids, I work on TV, I do movies, so the deafness question, is it that they want to know because, what? Not sure.

I've always wanted to write a book relating my experiences growing up as a deaf child in Chicago. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn't all about hearing aids and speech classes or frustrations.

Rule number one is, make sure that you face the person with hearing loss when you are speaking to them.