Stella Young Quotes

The world worries about disability more than disabled people do.

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 don't generally talk about medical terms when I discuss my position as a disabled person. I take a social rather than medical approach to disability, and so long Latin names for congenital conditions are not relevant.

I think a person who is disabled should be disabled by no act of their own. If you become disabled because of alcoholism, drugs, or things of that nature, I do not think those conditions qualify someone to be called disabled. I think those conditions result from personal decisions.

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

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.

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

I use the term 'disabled people' quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what's called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses.

The ADA gave more than 50 million Americans with disabilities, just like my son Cole, the chance to live the American Dream and be defined only by their potential - not their limitations.

The magnitude of discrimination and stigma faced by people with disability in Australia cannot be underestimated. People do not understand disability, and people fear what they don't understand.

People didn't always see a person with a disability who had to use a ramp or elevator as people who have been given unnecessary privileges. But I run into that often now. People are saying, 'Why do we have to go to great expense for these people?'

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

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

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.

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

We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.

I took my sight and mobility for granted.

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.

I know what it's like to be growing up, called 'deaf and mute' and 'deaf and dumb.' They're words that are very degrading and demeaning to people who are deaf and hard of hearing. It's almost... it's almost libelous, if you want to say that.

Disability simulation fails to capture the nuance and complexity of living in a disabled body. And it certainly fails to give a deep understanding of systemic discrimination and abuse faced by disabled people.

How a society treats its disabled is the true measure of a civilization.

The problem for many people with disabilities is not that we are not able to work a certain number of hours a week. It's that no-one will let us.

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.

As disabled people, we are taught from a young age that those who are attracted to us are to be regarded with suspicion.

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