Fantasia Barrino Quotes

I had lots of trouble in school as a child, and I lost confidence. Teachers thought I was stupid. I learned to read very late, when I was 11. Dyslexia wasn't recognized then, and the assumption was you were incapable of thinking.

I was dyslexic before anybody knew what dyslexia was. I was called 'slow'. It's an awful feeling to think of yourself as 'slow' - it's horrible.

At school I was really heavily dyslexic, so I really struggled academically with reading and writing.

When I was about 7 years old, I had been labeled dyslexic. I'd try to concentrate on what I was reading, then I'd get to the end of the page and have very little memory of anything I'd read. I would go blank, feel anxious, nervous, bored, frustrated, dumb. I would get angry. My legs would actually hurt when I was studying. My head ached. All through school and well into my career, I felt like I had a secret. When I'd go to a new school, I wouldn't want the other kids to know about my learning disability, but then I'd be sent off to remedial reading.

The biggest problem with dyslexic kids is not the perceptual problem, it is their perception of themselves. That was my biggest problem.

In retrospect, I think I had some kind of learning disorder. I could kind of charm my way through grade school, but in high school... I could never seem to grasp things.

All of my friends are really good dancers, which was initially why I never danced - we'd go out, and they would kill it, and I'd be like, 'Yeah, I'm just gonna sit at the bar.'

I definitely have managed to overcome dyslexia now to become a fully functional human being but things were a lot more difficult when I was younger.

I was perhaps the worst student you have ever seen. You know, I thought I was stupid, all my classmates thought I was stupid, so there was general agreement.

When nobody read, dyslexia wasn't a problem. When most people had to hunt, a minor genetic variation in your ability to focus attention was hardly a problem, and may even have been an advantage. When most people have to make it through high school, the same variation can become a genuinely life-altering disease.

I just would never go audition, and yet I was in very visible places where people would come looking for actors. I say I'm lazy, though I'm sure if I were in therapy for a lot of years, it would turn out to be a lot more than laziness. After awhile, it was, like, too embarrassing for me not to go on auditions. I had to be humiliated into it.

Being dyslexic, I was told that I was an idiot all the time.

I'm quite dyslexic in school.

At 13, in my first year of Tonbridge, I went up for the part of Macbeth. I was up against the 17- and 18-year-olds, but for some reason I got the part. It made me incredibly unpopular with my peers, but it was the English and drama teachers who stepped in to save me when others wanted me kicked out of the school.

I'm dyslexic, although they didn't have a word for it when I was in grade school. The teachers said I had 'word blindness.'

In order to be Miss Anybody you had to have excellent grades, and I had terrible grades because of my dyslexia.

People don't realise how dyslexia affects your confidence and how brutal it can be. People think you're dumb, and you know you're not. it's just how your brain works.

I never made it to the school choir because the music teacher didn't like my voice. I was pretty sad. But he was probably right; I did have a voice a bit like a goat, but my dad told me to never give up and to keep going, and it's paid off.

Other kids could read, other kids could write, other kids could spell, they could do math. I felt like an alien. I felt like an outcast. I felt like, 'What is going to happen to me?'

When I was in grade school, my teachers decided I was just about the dumbest thing to come through the door in a long time. Whatever the lesson, whatever the subject, I would sit and listen to them with a lost, glassy-eyed expression on my face.

Back when I was in school, few people understood dyslexia and what to do for it. My teachers thought I was lazy and not very clever, and I got bored easily... thinking of all the things I could do once I left school. I couldn't always follow what was going on.

I was a big shot in high school - big into social events and at the dramatic society - and I always had trouble in school. Not because I was a dummy, but I was always busy being the Jackson Heights clown.

Everyone else at school was terrified of me, and they were always laughing at me.

When you're growing up with a learning disability, it shoots your confidence and belief in what you can accomplish academically; it really damages it.

Being very dyslexic I couldn't even tie my own shoe laces until the age of 21 and I struggled at school.