When I was 13, I told Henry Winkler I wanted to act. He said, Do it and don't let anyone stand in your way. His validation just made it all the more true. I haven't stopped thanking him since.

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 live my life like everyone else; everyone has their own obstacles. Mine is deafness.

I'm gonna be unemployed when people read this. Ha.

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

If I were offered a cochlear implant today, I would prefer not to have one. But that's not a statement about hearing aids or cochlear implants. It's about who you are.

Every one of us is different in some way, but for those of us who are more different, we have to put more effort into convincing the less different that we can do the same thing they can, just differently.