Carol Channing Quotes

Everyone has setbacks. I'm no different. I happen to have no legs. That's pretty much the fact.

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

But my message to people with or without a condition is the fact that you can still do anything you set your mind to. You just have to do it in a slightly different way than other people.

Today, I am a touring standup comic who cannot stand up. Within three minutes, I begin to wilt, lose my balance, and topple over. I can tap dance and run in heels, but I need to use a wheelchair to navigate airports.

Disability can be no handicap.

It's just been so heartwarming to see my clothes on people in wheelchairs and people needing physical support.

I can sleep anywhere! I can come off stage during the interval of a play, lie down for four minutes then wake up feeling better.

With a play, for me, there's no time to sit back on it. You're living on your instincts. And every night there are subtle changes and adjustments, because what's in front of you is a living, breathing audience.

There are so many opportunities in life, that the loss of two or three capabilities is not necessarily debilitating. A handicap can give you the opportunity to focus more on art, writing, or music.

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

I'm officially disabled, but I'm truly enabled because of my lack of limbs. My unique challenges have opened up unique opportunities to reach so many in need.

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

I've lost audiences, I've recovered them.

Growing up, I would have to watch the other children and learn from my mistakes. I would have to push myself to overcome the things most people don't have to think about. Brushing my teeth was very difficult because of the noise of the brush.

Let me make this clear: my impairment is such that without a wheelchair, I can't do very much for myself. I can't get out of bed. I can't get myself to the toilet. I certainly can't get myself to work.

The flesh and bone leg is just beautiful. It's elegant. You know, when it's working, it's incredible. But if it's not working, well, you know, your life is certainly far from over.

For me, disability is a way of getting some extremity, some kind of very difficult situation, that throws an interesting light on people.

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.

I thought being in the wheelchair might be kind of limiting for me as an actor. It turned out cool in a lot of ways. Of course, at the end of the day, I can get up out of the chair and go home, but I'm very acutely aware that most people can't, so I try to give the situation that depth.

The gun lobby finds waiting periods inconvenient. You have only to ask my husband how inconvenient he finds his wheelchair from tome to time.

There are definitely some set topics I go onstage with and want to talk about, but there's also an element of improvisation and spontaneity that I like to bring to each performance and talk about uniquely in that room.

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 actually wanted to play the violin before I had polio, and then afterwards, there was no reason not to.

Doesn't make a difference who you're auditioning for; whatever it is, you have an audience, and you have a role, and you have the opportunity to perform that role the best you can for this audience. If you look at it like that, it doesn't make a difference if you get the part or not.