I have made the choices that work best for me. I know I cannot please everyone, and that's fine.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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