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Disability Quotes

Browse 855 quotes about Disability.

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Disability Quotes

“At first my father's job was clearing ruins. He had filed a sharp protest, however, justifying his disability over ten pages of closely spaced handwriting, buttressed by statements from witnesses and discharge papers from clinics for nervous diseases. His arguments were irrefutable, particularly if we take into consideration--aside from the actual facts--his polemical tone and his brilliant style. 'I hereby state for the attention of the esteemed Commissarist,' he wrote in his appeal, 'in connection with Item A-2, in which I took the liberty of citing the causes of my total incapacity and proving--if in a very sensible fashion--my abnormality as well as my complete mental and physical worthlessness, the worthlessness of a neurotic and alcoholic incapable of taking care of his family or himself, I hereby state, therefore, with a view to the most specific information possible on this matter, although each and every one of the aforementioned matters is in itself a physical amputation, I am stating that I am also flat-footed, a certificate to which effect I am appending from the draft board at Zalaegerszeg, by which I am exempt from military service by virtue of 100 percent flat-footedness. . .”

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Book:Garden, Ashes
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“I think one of the things I’ve learned as a writer...is that speech is a form of power in this world. As a writer, being able to articulate what other people may be feeling but perhaps struggle to put into words themselves, it is valued. But I also believe we—all of us—communicate in silence, in energy, in a love that extends from our hearts. And, to me, this is another form of inner power.”

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Book:Up: A Love Letter to the Down Syndrome Community
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“Acceptance is a deceptive word. It suggests compliance, a consenting to my condition and to who I have become. This form of acceptance is often seen as weakness, submission. We say I accept my punishment. Or I accept your decision. But such assent, while passive in essence, does provide the stable, rocklike foundation for coping with a condition that will not go away. It is a powerful passivity, the Zen of Illness, that allows for endurance.”

AcceptanceIllnessZenDisabilityCopingPersonal Essays
Author:Floyd Skloot
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“Over time I began to recognize the possibilities for transformation. I saw another kind of acceptance as being viable, the kind espoused by Robert Frost when he said "Take what is given, and make it over your own way." That is, after all, the root meaning of the verb "to accept," which comes from the Latin accipere, or "take to oneself." It implies an embrace. Not a giving up but a welcoming. People encourage the sick to resist, to fight back [...b]ut it wasn't possible to resist [...]. I began to realize that the most aggressive act I could perform on my own behalf was to stop struggling and discover what I could really do.”

AcceptanceIllnessZenDisabilityCopingPersonal Essays
Author:Floyd Skloot
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“As followers of Christ, we must respect God's creation of all people, and see them not as problems to be ignored or hidden away. Rather, we must see them as mirrors of our own brokenness, and as divine windows through which we can catch glimpses of God's grace. We must do whatever we can to respect God's image in even the most broken and twisted lives. Even the least of these carries intrinsic dignity and worth.”

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Book:Disability and the Gospel: How God Uses Our Brokenness to Display His Grace
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“You really don't have to subscribe to the life that had been written for you.”

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Author:Allan Hennessy
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“She enjoyed making people smile. She always hoped to leave them thinking, What a crackerjack that girl is, what a sassy piece of work. By sassy, of course, she wanted them to mean “pert, smart, jaunty” rather than “insolent, rude, impudent.” Walking the line between the right kind of sassy and the wrong kind was tricky, but if you pulled it off, you would never leave them thinking, What a sad little crippled girl she is, with her little twisted leg and her little gnarled hand. This evening, she suspected that she’d crossed the line between the wrong and the right kinds of sassy, and in fact walked out of sassy altogether, leaving them feeling more pity than delight.”

SmileDelightPityDisabilitySassySassNo Pity
Book:One Door Away from Heaven
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“I want to start to dream about what transformative justice looks like when someone who causes harm is disabled. I want there to be something - anything - that isn't ableist written about the intersections of neurodivergence or psych disabilities and being someone who's caused harm. Right now, if someone talks about how our psych disabilities or neurodiversity are intertwined in some way with how we've caused harm, either people fall into apologism: "they have psych disabilities, you can't blame them," or we're seen as monsters: "they have THAT disorder, they're toxic, stay away from them." Mostly, it's the latter, and the ableist demonization of people with psych disabilities as killers and monsters leaves no room for us to really talk about what happens when we are Mad and might cause harm. I want something else. I want anti-ableist forms of accountability that don't throw disabled people who cause harm under the bus, into every stereotype about "crazed autistic"/"psychotic"/"multiple personalities abusive killers." Instead, I want us to create accountability recommendations that are accessible to our disabilities and neurodivergence.”

MadnessDisabilityNeurodivergenceTransformative JusticePsych Disabilities
Book:Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement
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“It’s odd how we use some words even when they’re not accurate. We try our best to make words right here; they’re important. They show you care and you understand. Take for example: ‘walking across this room towards her’. I’m walking it, while some other people here wheel or crawl. So if I was talking about all us Wrecklings, I’d just say ‘moving’ instead. Cap’n says words are mighty. That they’re sometimes used by powerful people to make other people appear weaker, even when they’re the ones with lionhearts. Cap’n can be a pain about many things, but I think he’s right about that.”

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Book:The Secret of Haven Point
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“Most of all Ginny--part Schnauzer, part Siberian Husky, part angel from heaven--has taught me the most important lesson in life, that life is not worth living without love, that giving love is more rewarding than getting it, and that the humblest creatures, the least advantaged creatures, are worthy of the greatest outpouring of love. It's a spiritual message, that all life is precious (matters), all life is short, and that, just as human beings have immortal souls, so do animals have immortal souls, because they, too, were created by God. (word in parentheses by poster)”

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Author:Philip Gonzalez and Leonore Fleischer
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“When we begin to do for the least of these what David did for Mephibosheth, and what Jesus called his followers to do, we discover this: we are the broken and the needy. They. Are. Us. Perhaps more openly and undeniably, but all the same, they remind us of our true state before God. That is the gift they bring to God's people.”

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Book:Disability and the Gospel: How God Uses Our Brokenness to Display His Grace
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“But I live here, in this place. And I don’t know how to tell you that. I don’t want you to squirm, or take my hand and say it’s tragic. I don’t want you to roll your eyes as though I’m playing a macho game of one-upmanship: My pain can beat up everyone else’s adolescent pain, so I’ll just be over here in the corner, savoring the depths of my stoic suffering and shedding no more than a single tear when I listen to every single cover of “Hurt” and “Hallelujah” on repeat. No, you can’t help me. Don’t try to help me. Please try to help me.”

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Book:Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens
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“I couldn't help concluding that disabled people with adequate resources and support are, as a group, particularly equipped to weather the adjustment to parenthood. Physical weakness and change do not scare us as they do others. We have spent years decoupling joy from physical or mental function.”

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Book:Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World
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“Come evidenziato dalla letteratura femminista sull’etica della cura, termini quali dipendenza e vulnerabilità portano ancora lo stigma di connotazioni negative, rinforzando stereotipi culturali di autonomia e individualismo fino a svalutare l’idea stessa di cura. Forse invece è utile ripensare la categoria della dipendenza come una questione umana universale, riconoscendo come tutte e tutti siamo dipendenti nella nostra vita quotidiana da altre persone, da tecnologie, da oggetti, da ambienti materiali costruiti sulla base delle specificità dei nostri corpi e da mille relazioni di ogni tipo. Non si tratta affatto di negare le differenze dei corpi e delle menti, ma di accettare la natura universale della dipendenza e, di converso, attenuare l’insistenza sul mito dell’indipendenza e dell’autonomia come principi fondativi di qualsiasi strategia o politica per la disabilità.”

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Book:La città autistica
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“My pronoun is people, I'm divergent, yet invincible. I am straight, I am queer; I am civilian, I am seer. Spirit of life, I - am universal! Call me disabled or differently able, Call me collective or individual. Fleshly forms I've got plenty, All run by same love and liberty - Culture supreme is inclusion.”

DiversityEqualityDisabilityInclusionRepresentationDisabledInclusiveNeurodiversityInclusivityDisability Awareness
Book:Yaralardan Yangın Doğar: Explorers of Night are Emperors of Dawn
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“In the context of the autism world (and my outlook in general) this is were I stand equality is for everyone, everybody in the world - I look at both sides of the the coin and take into account peoples realities (that makes me neutral/moderate/in the middle). That means that you look in a more three dimensional perspective of peoples diverse realities you cannot speak for all but one can learn from EACH OTHER through listening and experiencing. I also try my best to live with the good cards I was given not over-investing in my autism being the defining factor of my being (but having a healthy acknowledgement of it) that it's there but also thinking about other qualities I have such as being a writer, poet and artist. I do have disability, I do have autism and I have a "mild" learning disability that is true but I a human being first and foremost. And for someone to be seen as person equal to everyone else is a basic human right.”

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Book:Living Through the Haze
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“Everyone saw you lose it,' I whisper, doing my best to mentally block the pain like I have countless times before. It's usually as easy as building a mental wall around the pulsing torment in my body, then telling myself the pain only exists in that box so I can't feel it, but it isn't working so well this time. 'I didn't lose it.' He kicks the door three times when we reach it. 'You shouted and carried me out of there like I mean something to you.' I focus on the scar on his jaw, the stubble on his tan skin, anything to keep from feeling the utter destruction in my shoulder. 'You do mean something to me.' He kicks again. And now everyone knows.”

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Book:Fourth Wing
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“a rose for empathy can my own beauty reflect off glass again the pain subsides like matted walls like hospital halls like gas and pills and sass never can I dance in balls or prance through malls my pelvic gird’ survives tacked back intact i sigh relieved my paralysis stops there died before my eyes the drunk in fact who crashed and thrashed and mashed in flee of cops by grace i stay a higher vertebrate in this ordered peck of vine and line still mine my skin and brain remain not celibate those organs large and whole and sexed and fine the drunk fared worse in life in death in time my paraplegia dared curse his crime not mine”

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Author:Miles Garrett
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