Explore Quotes by Marlee Matlin

When it comes down to it, it's about who you know, and who's a fan. It's about whether you're the right age, whether you're hot or not, whether the studio is into you or not.

All I can say is I've been reading the lips of bleeped-out words, angry baseball players, and stoned-out rock stars on awards shows for years and it's been hilarious. Everyone is always asking me what the bleeped-out parts are saying.

I'm not really deaf; I just faked it to win the Oscar KIDDING.

I'm a proud person who happens to be deaf. I don't want to change it. I don't want to wake up and suddenly say, 'Oh my God, I can hear.' That's not my dream. It's not my dream. I've been raised deaf. I'm used to the way I am. I don't want to change it. Why would I ever want to change? Because I'm used to this, I'm happy.

Im in my mid-30s, Ive won an Oscar, I have four children. You figure out if my deafness has adversely affected my life.

I have always resisted putting limitations on myself, both professionally and personally.

I learned to speak first, and then to sign. I have never really known what it was like to hear, so I cant compare hearing aids to normal hearing.

I got a good handshake. A lot of executives tell me I have the best handshake in Hollywood.

We had a dog, Apples. He was 13 years old, toothless, blind and had the worst breath this side of Jabba the Hut. But he was the sweetest dog, and I cried and cried when he died.

It was my father who instilled the “never say no” attitude I carry around with me today, and who instilled in me a sense of wonder, always taking us on adventures in the car, never telling us the destination.

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and in spite of what most people might have expected from a young girl growing up deaf, life for me was like one long episode of The Brady Bunch. Despite whatever barriers were in my way, I imagined myself as Marcia Brady skating down the street saying “hi” to everyone, whether they knew me or not.

Hollywood embraced me in the late '80s because there was a good project I was in and it was different. Nowadays, it's about corporate mentality, box office, youth.

I can hear you and I can watch your mouth move, and then I put together the sounds and the visual image and I can understand the words as I integrate the two signals.

I was 21 years and 218 days old when I received the Academy Award for Best Actress. I had just stepped into an imaginary world that I'd seen at a distance for years.

How many deaf people do you know in real life? Unless they live in a cave, or are 14, which seems to be true for most people in this business, what could I possibly tell them that they don't already know?

What parent has it easy? I just never make the difficulty of it an obstacle. I just do it.

When you're up for an award at the Oscars, try as you might, it's hard to concentrate on the show.

I've been around since I was 19, I won the Oscar when I was 21, I've had a couple of TV series. I've continued to work despite the predictions of some naysayers.

I was the youngest and only girl in a family of two older brothers.

The handicap of deafness is not in the ear; it is in the mind.

Living modestly in a suburban neighborhood while trying to support four children through private school is not extravagant or living large.