Zach Anner 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've had versions of disability my whole life, first with my hearing and then when I couldn't walk for over a year.

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.

Pamela Anderson has more prosthetic in her body than I do. Nobody calls her disabled.

By far, the most disabling thing in my life is the physical environment. It dictates what I can and can't do every day.

I'm afraid they've left their legs at home.

On the first day I got my wheelchair, I was also given all my clothes for the next day, a little pile on the chair. I was so proud of myself for getting it all on - the socks and everything. Dressing is a struggle, and it can take up to an hour and a half.

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

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.

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'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.'

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.

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.

In my own home, where I've been able to create an environment that works for me, I'm hardly disabled at all. I still have an impairment, and there are obviously some very restrictive things about that, but the impact of disability is less.

Of course I read Braille, yes.

… a blind man talking to a group of deaf people

It's not well appreciated, but over half of the world's population suffers from some form of cognitive, emotional, sensory or motor condition, and because of poor technology, too often, conditions result in disability and a poorer quality of life. Basic levels of physiological function should be a part of our human rights. Every person should have the right to live life without disability if they so choose -- the right to live life without severe depression; the right to see a loved one, in the case of seeing-impaired; or the right to walk or to dance, in the case of limb paralysis or limb amputation. As a society, we can achieve these human rights, if we accept the proposition that humans are not disabled. A person can never be broken. Our built environment, our technologies, are broken and disabled. We the people need not accept our limitations, but can transcend disability through technological innovation. Indeed, through fundamental advances in bionics in this century, we will set the technological foundation for an enhanced human experience, and we will end disability.

The problems of the disabled are unpopular.

Only three per cent of people are born with a disability; the rest acquire it through accident or illness, but people come out of it. Thanks to medical advances, bodies heal.

There are many role models I've been around, and kind of the biggest one - there's a show called 'Push Girls,' with all women in wheelchairs, and they're all really good friends of mine. And one, Angela Rockwood, is still modeling, in a wheelchair. After a car accident.

The truth is my dad was a lovely man who had to retire early from his job as an engineer because he had osteoporosis. It meant he was forced to wear a harness and could hardly breathe.

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.

It was already hard enough growing up in the Philippines but imagine being blind, that's 10 times harder.

I was told that I would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.

Just because I am wheelchair-bound doesn't mean I don't get around.