Stella Young Quotes

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.

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 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.

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?'

Britain's way of dealing with disability is just to try and pretend it's not happening. A swift sweep under the carpet.

A lot of times, we look at people who have disabilities as, 'Oh, we can't invite these people here or there.' And I hate that, because it's inappropriate. It's so weird to me when people say they don't have friends who have disabilities.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

A lot of the time, when people meet someone in a wheelchair, or with some disability, it's the first thing they notice, but they don't know how to react.

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

For those looking at me, meeting me for the first time, it is the body they see. I am labelled as disabled.

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

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

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?'

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

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

The world worries about disability more than disabled people do.

Congress acknowledged that society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as are the physical limitations that flow from actual impairment.

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

Disability is often framed, in medical terms, as the ultimate disaster and certainly as a deficit.

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!