Robert David Hall Quotes

I would love to switch on my TV and see a disabled person talking about something they are genuinely interested in or acting out a part that doesn't just focus on their impairment.

Disability is as visual as race. If a wheelchair user can't play Beyonce, then Beyonce can't play a wheelchair user.

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.

There's a wide variety of diversity, with people that have disabilities from R.J. Mitte in 'Breaking Bad' to Danny Woodburn being a little man.

People with disabilities are simply part of diverse communities in the U.S.

I'm not an advocate for disability issues. Human issues are what interest me. You can't possibly speak for a diverse group of people. 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.

There are 58 million people with some kind of disability in America, so it's the largest minority, really, in America, and it lags behind in education and economics and jobs, so outside of 'CSI' and outside of my music, I serve on a couple of boards, and I'm trying to be a part of the movement that changes this.

It's really important to remember that disability is diversity, and that disabled actors and disabilities are something that is hugely under-represented in film.

My life goal is to see the world's one billion people with disabilities embraced and encouraged by the church.

I have a strong sense that I have to educate people about disability.

I played a paraplegic on a show called 'Neighbours.' Just turned up on set, sat in a wheelchair. The producer came up to me one day and said, 'We have to cut around that entire scene because your leg was moving.'

Disability doesn't make you exceptional, but questioning what you think you know about it does.

A lot of people don't want to hire disabled actors. They think you're going to take twice as long over a shot, or they don't want have to put up a ramp for disabled access. They think, 'Why would I do that when I can just hire an able-bodied actor to play the disabled character?'

The most exciting thing I've seen is directors not only being open to actors coming in the room with different abilities but actively looking at ways that the story can be enlarged with disabled actors.

The Southbank Centre Unlimited Festival was a distinct moment in time, an amazing counterpoint to the London 2012 Paralympics. There is no question that a major shift in perspective is taking place, that the world is waking up and greeting - as if for the first time - the extraordinary community of people with disability.

Paralympic sport and other disability sport can and should be celebrated in its own right.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

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.

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.

I love working on 'Glee,' and I hope that there are more and more parts for me and other actors with Down syndrome in television and in movies so I can keep working for a long, long time.

It became very clear to me that Yooralla was not as interested in media coverage that explored issues faced by people with disability as it was in giving a pat on the back to journalists who maintained the status quo by giving readers the warm and fuzzies over their morning paper.

I was recently appointed by President Obama to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. I am so excited that the President trusts me to advise him on things that are important to people with disabilities!

The sentiment of those suggesting the Olympics and Paralympics be combined is no doubt well intentioned. But it also echoes the myth that disabled people want to be other than what we are - that we'd like nothing more than to be 'allowed in' with the able-bodied competitors.

Physical access is one of the very first issues disability rights activists of the 1960s and '70s fought for.

Disability informs almost every part of my life. It's as important, if not more so, than my gender and sexuality. It's certainly a great deal more important to me than my religion or whether or not I caught a tram, ferry or bus to work.