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

During a visit to California, when a friend of my grandmother's told my parents that I must be deaf because I was not responding to sounds, my father was absolutely convinced that I was simply being stubborn.

It was ability that mattered, not disability, which is a word I'm not crazy about using.

Watch me when people say deaf and dumb, or deaf mute, and I give them a look like you might get if you called Denzel Washington the wrong name.

I'm different, and my manner invites questions. I'm never afraid to answer.

Deaf people can do anything, except hear.

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.