I've always wanted to write a book relating my experiences growing up as a deaf child in Chicago. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn't all about hearing aids and speech classes or frustrations.
Marlee MatlinRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a sense of pride and acceptance in one's identity, specifically being deaf.
Marlee Matlin emphasizes the importance of accepting oneself as they are, highlighting that her deafness is not something she wishes to change. Instead of seeing her disability as a limitation, she embraces it as an integral part of who she is, reflecting a deep sense of contentment and happiness in her unique identity.
Themes
DeafnessPrideAcceptanceIdentityHappiness
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about embracing diversity, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of accepting one's unique traits.
More from Marlee Matlin
All quotes βIt was ability that mattered, not disability, which is a word I'm not crazy about using.
Marlee MatlinRead
The only thing I can't do is hear. I can drive, I have a life with four kids, I work on TV, I do movies, so the deafness question, is it that they want to know because, what? Not sure.
Marlee MatlinRead
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 βhiβ to everyone, whether they knew me or not.
Marlee MatlinRead
When I was 11, I knew that I wanted to write a kid's book and tell the world what it was like being deaf.
Marlee MatlinRead
I like to say that the greatest handicap of deafness does not lie in the ear, it lies in the mind. I hope that through my example, such as my role on 'The West Wing,' I can help change attitudes on deafness and prove we can really do everything... except hear.
Marlee MatlinRead
Similar quotes
Humility has nothing to do with depreciating ourselves and our gifts in ways we know to be untrue. Even "humble" attitudes can be masks of pride. Humility is that freedom from our self which enables us to be in positions in which we have neither recognition nor importance, neither power nor visibility, and even experience deprivation, and yet have joy and delight. It is the freedom of knowing that we are not in the center of the universe, not even in the center of our own private universe.
David F. WellsRead
If this were fiction, could even the most brilliant novelist contrive to make credible so short a period in which pride had been subdued and prejudice overcome?
P. D. JamesRead
I believe in pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves.
W. E. B. Du BoisRead
We dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea - organic law rather than naked power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation.
Potter StewartRead
O believer, learn to reject pride, seeing that you have no ground for it. Whatever you are, you have nothing to make you proud. The more you have, the more you are in debt to God; and you should not be proud of that which renders you a debtor.
Charles SpurgeonRead
How was it that he haunted her imagination so persistently? What could it be? Why did she care for what he thought, in spite of all her pride in spite of herself? She believed that she could have borne the sense of Almighty displeasure, because He knew all, and could read her penitence, and hear her cries for help in time to come. But Mr.Thornton-why did she tremble, and hide her face in the pillow? What strong feeling had overtaking her at last?
Elizabeth GaskellRead