Quotessence
Home / Topics / Wheelchairs Quotes

Wheelchairs Quotes

Browse 121 quotes about Wheelchairs.

Related topics

PeopleIfsI CanWayDisabilityGivingThinkingLittlesNeedsWantYears

Wheelchairs Quotes

“It wasn't [Barack] Obama per se; it was the feeling on the ground; it was seeing an old black woman in a wheelchair being wheeled by her son waving a big American flag, and then seeing a guy with his baby in his arms saying, "I didn't want her to miss tonight! I wanted to be able to tell her!" And to see all these people, a Hispanic cop dancing with an old white woman, wow! I mean, that's the world I want to live in, and because it's the world I want to live in, I had a hard time leaving.”

PeopleWorldWantMeanHardFeelingsBigsAbleWantedGuyBlackWhiteSeeingMissingSonBabyArmsDancingLeavingBarackHard TimesTonightWowFlagsCopBlack WomenHispanicWheelchairsAmerican Flag
Author:Bill Ayers
Create image

“I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 29, and I thought it was because I'm in a wheelchair. And I realized that it's not that, it's because I listened to what the dismissive part of society was telling me and accepted it as truth. There was nothing that was keeping me from dating or falling in love other than the fact that I was scared of being rejected. And everybody has that fear. That's a universal thing.”

FactsFallUniversalDatingFalling In LoveScaredAcceptedI RealizedGirlfriendRejectedWheelchairs
Author:Zach Anner
Create image

“When I read the script [of Glee], the whole premise was that all the high school kids were being cruel to this kid in the wheelchair, and then the quarterback comes along and has a heart of gold and takes him out of a Porta Potty. That's too often what I see in media, that the characters with disabilities are there to make other people seem like heroes for treating the character with a disability with respect. Those are the kinds of roles that are out there.”

PeopleHeartKindWholeCharacterSeemsKidsSchoolRolesMediaHeroHigh SchoolGoldScriptsDisabilityPremisesQuarterbackGleeWheelchairsPottyHeart Of Gold
Author:Zach Anner
Create image

“What sense would it make to classify a man as handicapped because he is in a wheelchair today, if he is expected to be walking again in a month, and competing in track meets before the year is out? Yet Americans are generally given 'class' labels on the basis of their transient location in the income stream. If most Americans do not stay in the same broad income bracket for even a decade, their repeatedly changing 'class' makes class itself a nebulous concept. Yet the intelligentsia are habituated, if not addicted, to seeing the world in class terms.”

IfsMenWorldYearsTodayGivenTermClassSeeingMonthsWalkingConceptsBasesTrackExpectedDecadesIncomeLabelsStreamsBroadsLocationCompetingTransientSeeing The WorldWheelchairsHandicappedBrackets
Book:The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
Create image

“The bible says no man can take your joy. That means no person can make you live with a negative attitude. No circumstance, no adversity can force you to live in despair. As Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of wheelchair-bound President Franklin D. Roosevelt, often said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

MenFeelsMeanPersonsSaidJoyForcePresidentAttitudeWifeCircumstancesDespairNegativeAdversityBoundsInferiorsConsentFranklinEleanorWheelchairsNegative AttitudePresident Franklin D. Roosevelt
Author:Joel Osteen
Create image

“Some damage is too severe, some harm endures. And what you have to do is accept it. And by accept it I mean, don’t be the paralyzed person in the bed who is waiting to walk again. Realize, it’s never gonna happen. And find some other way to get around –swing from a vine, get a Mad Max wheelchair. Anything but…wait.”

WayMeanPersonsHappensWaitingRealizingWalksAcceptingBedMadEndureHarmDamageSwingsSevereMaxVinesParalyzedWheelchairsMad Max
Author:Augusten Burroughs
Create image

“Writing about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and its disadvantages at cocktail parties, giving the user what he described as a child's-eye view of the party and a crotch-level view of the guests. Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.”

GivingShouldWritingChildrenMatterEyeRunningAgeGrowsProcessLevelsViewsPartyLaughingDyingReadyBenefitsAgingRidiculousOld AgeGentleRestaurantsGuestsUsersAirportsDisadvantagesCocktailsWheelchairsIndignityCocktail PartiesStairwaysRestroomAging ProcessSlapstick
Author:John Mortimer
Create image

“Not fair? Oh, I'm sorry I get this lovely laptop computing device when all you get is the ability to walk, control your hands, and know you'll survive until your eighteenth birthday." Then the kid was going, "Uh, I didn't mean..." But Tad wasn't done yet. While the whole class watched in horror, he put his hands through the metal support braces on the arms of his wheelchair and forced himself to stand up. Then he took a shaky little step to the side, gestured toward the chair, and said, "Why don't you take a turn with the laptop? You can even have my seat.”

KnowsMeanLittlesSaidDoneWholeHandsKidsTurnsSidesAbilityWalksStepsClassSupportArmsHorrorFairsSorryLovelySeatsChairsDevicesMetalsI'm SorryLaptopsNot FairComputingWheelchairsBraces
Author:Jordan Sonnenblick
Create image

“The wrinkled man in the wheelchair with the legs wrapped, the girl with her face punctured deep with the teeth marks of a dog, the mess of the world, and I see - this, all this, is what the French call d'un beau affreux, what the Germans call hubsch-hasslich - the ugly-beautiful. That which is perceived as ugly transfigures into beautiful. What the postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin expressed as 'Le laid peut etre beau' - The ugly can be beautiful. The dark can give birth to life; suffering can deliver grace.”

MenWorldGivingBeautifulFacesSufferingGirlDarkGraceDogBirthMarkUglyLegsTeethPainterMessWheelchairs
Author:Ann Voskamp
Create image

“Walking the streets of Tokyo with Hawking in his wheelchair ... I felt as if I were taking a walk through Galilee with Jesus Christ [as] crowds of Japanese silently streamed after us, stretching out their hands to touch Hawking's wheelchair. ... The crowds had streamed after Einstein [on Einstein's visit to Japan in 1922] as they streamed after Hawking seventy years later. ... They showed exquisite choice in their heroes. ... Somehow they understood that Einstein and Hawking were not just great scientists, but great human beings.”

IfsYearsHumansHandsScienceChoicesJesusFeltChristHuman BeingsWalksStreetsHeroWalkingUnderstoodJesus ChristScientistCrowdsJapanSeventiesExquisiteStretchingTokyoWheelchairsGreat Scientist
Author:Freeman Dyson
Create image

“Is it not possible to look beyond the canes, the wheelchairs, the braces, and the crutches into the hearts of the people who have need of these aids? They are human beings and want only to be treated as ordinary people. They may appear different, move awkwardly, and speak haltingly, but they have the same feelings. ... They want to be loved for what they are inside, without any prejudice for their impairment. Can there not be more tolerance for differences-differences in capacity, differences in body and in mind?”

PeopleWantNeedsMindHumansLooksHeartMayDifferentFeelingsBodyInspirationMovingSpeakSocialDifferencesHuman BeingsOrdinaryCapacityPrejudiceAidsToleranceTreatedOrdinary PeopleCrutchesWheelchairsBraces
Author:James E. Faust
Create image

“Visiting someone in a hospital recently, I watched an elderly couple. The man was in a wheelchair, the wife sitting next to him in the visitors' room. For the half-hour that I watched they never exchanged a word, just held hands and looked at each other, and once or twice the man patted his wife's face. The feeling of love was so thick in that room that I felt I was sharing in their communion and was shaken all day by their pain, their love, something sad and also joyful: the fullness of a human relationship.”

MenLoveHumansFeelingsHandsPainFacesNextFeltHoursRoomsHalfWifeHe ManCoupleSittingHospitalsThickJoyfulCommunionFullnessElderlyVisitingHuman RelationsVisitorsHuman RelationshipsLove RelationshipHalf HoursWheelchairs
Author:Eda LeShan
Create image

“If you have it, it is for life. It is a disease for which there is no cure. You will go on riding even after they have to haul you on a comfortable wise old cob, with feet like inverted buckets and a back like a fireside chair... when I can't ride anymore, I shall still keep horses as long as I can hobble about with a bucket and a wheelbarrow. When I can't hobble, I shall roll my wheelchair out to the fence of the field where my horses graze, and watch them.”

IfsLongStillsI CanWatchesWiseFeetFieldsGoes OnDiseaseComfortableHorseCuresChairsRidingFenceBucketsHaulWheelchairsInvertedWheelbarrows
Author:Monica Dickens
Create image

“I think baseball is a great support to people who have emotional voids, gaps, emotional difficulties. That is to say: all of us. Those parts of us that don’t function well. Those parts of us that are sad or depressed—not every day. They can really use baseball. It isn't just the child in a wheelchair or the shut-in senior citizen listening to the radio that needs the game. There’s part of us, part of everybody who’s a baseball fan, who needs the game at that level.”

PeopleThinkingNeedsWellsChildrenUseGamesLevelsSupportFansEmotionalListeningCitizensBaseballFunctionDifficultyRadioGapsVoidSeniorWheelchairsSenior CitizenBaseball Fans
Author:Thomas Boswell
Create image

“I mean, I understand that because they're disadvantaged that they deserve their own parking spots, but do they have to make them so wide? I never understood how these people were allowed to drive cars but they get these really neat chairs with wheels and they're still not happy, so instead of parking their wheelchairs in the designated spots, they upstage us normal people and get the best parking spots with vehicles that are clearly too sophisticated for them to be handling. Still, you should smile at a cripple, because it's the only bit of happiness they'll ever have.”

PeopleShouldMeanStillsBitsCarNormalUnderstoodDeserveWideSpotsWheelsChairsVehicleSophisticatedNeatNot HappyParkingCripplesWheelchairsDisadvantagedParking Spots
Author:Zach Braff
Create image

“Here is the full list of the banned words I used: active homosexual; career women; Third World; blacks; Asians; Australasia; Bangalore; primitive African tribes; crippled; in a wheelchair; hare lip; ethnic minorities; handicapped; spinster; committed suicide; gypsies; Bombay; illegitimate daughter; air hostess; Siamese twins; Calcutta; deaf ears; illegal asylum seeker; province of Northern Ireland; grandmother; bachelor.”

WorldAmericaUsedCareersAirModernDaughterEarsThirdsSuicideLipsCommittedActiveListsMinoritiesGrandmotherIllegalIrelandPrimitiveTwinsTribesHomosexualDeafModern WorldSeekersProvincesThird WorldGypsyAsylumsBannedBachelorsCrippledCalcuttaHaresWheelchairsHandicappedNorthern IrelandBombayHostessesSpinstersCareer WomenDeaf EarsAsylum SeekersBangaloreAfrican Tribes
Author:Rod Liddle
Create image

“In 2005, a man diagnosed with multiple myeloma asked me if he would be alive to watch his daughter graduate from high school in a few months. In 2009, bound to a wheelchair, he watched his daughter graduate from college. The wheelchair had nothing to do with his cancer. The man had fallen down while coaching his youngest son's baseball team.”

IfsMenWould BeSchoolWatchesAliveTeamCollegeHe ManSonMonthsDaughterHigh SchoolBaseballBoundsCancerFallenCoachingGraduatesMultipleWheelchairsGraduating High SchoolBaseball TeamYoungest Son
Book:The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Create image

“In America access is always about architecture and never about human beings. Among Israelis and Palestinians, access was rarely about anything but people. While in the U.S. a wheelchair stands out as an explicitly separate experience from the mainstream, in the Israel and Arab worlds it is just another thing that can go wrong in a place where things go wrong all the time.”

PeopleWorldHumansAmericaHuman BeingsIsraelArchitectureAccessMainstreamPalestinianStanding OutWheelchairsArab World
Author:John Hockenberry
Create image