I guess not being able to hear just made me adventurous and daring. And in most cases, that didn't make my parents very happy with me.

Differences are scarier now. The dollar isn't so guaranteed if you don't follow what they see as the norm. But I don't moan about it. I just keep working.

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.

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.

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

I'm the only one in my family who is deaf, and there are still conversations that go around me that I miss out on. And I ask what's going on, and I have to ask to be included. But I'm not going to be sad about it. I don't live in sad isolation. It's just a situation I'm used to.

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.