Disability Comparison Quotes

I may be paralyzed from the waist down, but unlike Gray Davis, I'm not paralyzed from the neck up.

No one would ever say that someone with a broken arm or a broken leg is less than a whole person, but people say that or imply that all the time about people with mental illness

Better to be paralyzed from the neck down than the neck up

The difference between deafness and any other disability is that there is no way to put yourself in a position of knowing what it would be like because you can't stop yourself from hearing your own breath or your own heartbeat. You can not remove sound entirely from your life. You can get a sense of what being blind is like by closing and covering your eyes which provides a source of empathy because we can all project ourselves to that. But people who think they can project themselves into deafness are mistaken because you can't.

When we say 'less fortunate,' we generally mean the poor rather than the disabled, who actually are less fortunate. In truth, the poor are generally 'less fortunate' only in terms of genetics. They are certainly not less fortunate in the amount of help they receive.

If blind people wear sunglasses, why don't deaf people wear earmuffs?

When I was a child, I dreaded blindness. We used to ask: 'Would we rather be blind or deaf?' I said I'd rather be blind, even though I was scared of it. I couldn't bear not being able to hear music or talk to people.

My father had osteomyelitis-his left arm was withered between his elbow and his shoulder ... . But the amputation of a Stone Age man called Leaf, a stoneworker, does not relate to my father at all.

But I've often said that if I had – I have two dogs – if I had two retarded children, I'd be a hero. And yet the dogs, which are pretty much the same thing. What? They're sweet. They're loving. They're kind, but they don't mentally advance at all. Dogs are like retarded children.

There are plenty of people who have legs who are way more disabled than me.

I've seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I've seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head.

I am technically healthy but my body is no more valid than someone's who isn't.