Francis Ford Coppola Quotes

When I was paralysed by polio at 13, I went into an isolation hospital and couldn't sit up, so I only took liquid food from spouted cups which the masked nurses would bring in and feed to me. I saw my parents only through glass; we couldn't touch.

I was actually in an iron lung for about a year, and then I was paralysed from the neck down for another year after that. So I spent a lotta time just lying down as a kid. And some of my earliest memories from then are of listening to the radio.

I was told as a teenager that I would never walk again.

I went to several different grade schools all over the West Coast. I got polio when I was 8 and spent eight months in the hospital and a rehab clinic in Seattle.

I've had, you know, my leg chopped off.

I had polio when I was 13. I started feeling stiff, my joints ached, and over a two-week period I lost my coordination and 20 pounds.

I joined the Army at 19 as a soldier and spent about four and a half years with them. Then I broke my back in a freefall parachuting accident and spent a year in rehabilitation back in the U.K.

Then I got a bad back injury, and they thought I wasn't going to have any feeling in my legs.

I was supposed to be on the Tonight Show but I broke my shoulder instead.

I can no longer walk in the street. That's over.

Am I ever going to be able to play football again? What's going on with my career? I was just thinking things like that. You've got tears going down your eyes. You've got your trainers right there and my parents right there. I was just thinking, "Is this it?" I didn't know what a knee injury was. I'd never felt pain like that.

It finally became clear to me that they had no hopes of my ever walking again.

One of the things polio does is it takes away your energy. They don't know very much about it. They should be a lot more aware of what polio is.

Being injured, nobody wants to be injured.

The doctors said I might not be able to walk again. Today, I can almost run, but back then, I couldn't even stand up. I was bed-ridden. If I wanted to turn over in bed, I had to move my legs with my hands. I was in and out of the hospital for months.

Any athlete will tell you that it's the most difficult thing in the world being injured.

I was determined to get back to my life. I had to relearn how to do everything. I had to learn how to talk, eat, move my arms.

I had to teach myself how to walk again. It was crazy. I couldn't even make a muscle in my leg. I felt like no muscles in my leg. I was already skinny. It was like my leg was dead.

You can't even imagine the feeling you get when someone tells you that you are about to lose your legs.

I got really, really sick with a horrible disease called transverse myelitis; I lost my legs. I couldn't play anymore. It was a form of multiple sclerosis, which I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Since the attack I have undergone over 250 operations to improve my physical functioning.

When you get injured for a long time, it's not nice because you are out of the team and not involved anymore.

I was riding pillion on my friend's motorbike, and we met with an accident which badly injured my right leg. I was bedridden for three years and used crutches for one year before I fully recovered.

The toughest time was lying in a Tenerife hospital with no-one speaking English, next to a window with the sun beating down and my leg tied up, thinking I would never box again or even walk again. It took every bit of shine off winning the world title.

When I was injured after 'Kill Bill' I had a year where I not just couldn't make any money but I couldn't swim, I couldn't surf, I could hardly run, which is insane. I couldn't do gymnastics, martial arts, I could barely crawl on all fours. That was devastating to me.