The charity that begins at home cannot rest there but draws one inexorably over the threshold and off the porch and down the street and so out and out and out and out into the world which becomes the home wherein charity begins until it becomes possible, in theory at least, to love the whole of creation with the same patience, affection, and amusement one first practiced, in between the pouts and tantrums, with parents, siblings, spouse, and children.

I felt permanently exiled from 'normality.' Whether imposed by self or society, this outsider status - and not the disability itself - constitutes the most daunting barrier for most people with physical impairments, because it, even more than flights of steps or elevators without braille, prevents them from participating fully in the ordinary world, where most of life's satisfactions dwell.

no one expects all impediments to be miraculously whisked away. In insisting that others view our lives as ample and precious, we are not demanding that they be made perfect. ... If it is both possible and pleasant for me and my kind to enter, the world will become a livelier place. You'll see.

If only we could have them back as babies today, now that we have some idea what to do with them.

Poor and afflicted and oppressed people have faces, and we are required to look squarely into them. We can't love what we won't experience.

Do others, I wondered, "see things as I do? I do not think so, for if they did they would not still be alive." And, life-threatening though my vision seemed, I would not repudiate it: "Sometimes I think I shall die from being different even as I cling to the difference fiercely."

Writing is not, alas, like riding a bicycle: it does not get easier with practice.