Marlee Matlin Quotes

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

The best feeling in the world is when you child just comes up to you and lays their head in your lap, for no other reason but just because.

I'm particularly proud of my work with the Starkey Hearing Foundation for whom I raised a million dollars in one day on 'Celebrity Apprentice.' They do great work around the world helping deaf children in developing countries get proper attention and free hearing aids.

I would love to do a talk show. Naturally, I would love to do more films. I'd love to be able to see casting directors more willing to put in a character who happens to be deaf. I'm not talking about doing deaf storylines, but putting in deaf characters. I'd love to be able to do Broadway.

I am grateful for each and every food bank that helps families in need. Now, more than ever, hunger is a crisis in America, and yet it is not spoken enough and people have yet to give enough to help those in need. Local food banks help fill this need but they need our help, our support, and most importantly, our dollars. No one should ever go hungry.

Every one of us is different in some way, but for those of us who are more different, we have to put more effort into convincing the less different that we can do the same thing they can, just differently.

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

We aren't handicapped in any way except by what other people think. Focus on people's abilities. I can't be on 'American Idol,' but there's all kinds of stuff I can do.

I got a good handshake. A lot of executives tell me I have the best handshake in Hollywood.

Silence is the last thing the world will ever hear from me.

We had a dog, Apples. He was 13 years old, toothless, blind and had the worst breath this side of Jabba the Hut. But he was the sweetest dog, and I cried and cried when he died.

When I was young I knew I was deaf. I couldn't accept it.

I did my first series lead back in 1991 on a show called 'Reasonable Doubts' and have done many shows with other actors who are deaf. But 'Switched at Birth' is the first TV show where there is more than one actor who is deaf or hard of hearing and who are series regulars.

I know what it's like to be growing up, called 'deaf and mute' and 'deaf and dumb.' They're words that are very degrading and demeaning to people who are deaf and hard of hearing. It's almost ... it's almost libelous, if you want to say that.

I've always wanted to write a book relating my experiences growing up as a deaf child in Chicago. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn't all about hearing aids and speech classes or frustrations.

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

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.

Living modestly in a suburban neighborhood while trying to support four children through private school is not extravagant or living large.

In the deaf community, there are different types of people who have different philosophies. Some believe that they should only sign. Some believe they should only speak. Some people say you should use cued speech. Some say you should use cochlear implants. Some say you shouldn't sign. Some people say you should sign.

I want roles without anger and feistiness. I want to show weakness and sadness, some love, some happiness.

I learned a long time ago from when I did 'Seinfeld' never to take anything seriously, and to be part of the joke is the best way to show what a good sport I was.

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.

At some point we have to stop and say, There's Marlee, not, There's the deaf actress.

I have always resisted putting limitations on myself, both professionally and personally.

I listen to Billy Joel. He is fabulous. I saw him with Elton John when they toured together, it was so great.

I hope that through my example, such as my role on 'The West Wing,' I can help change attitudes on deafness and prove we can really do everything ... except hear.

Im in my mid-30s, Ive won an Oscar, I have four children. You figure out if my deafness has adversely affected my life.

As a kid, during the school year, my head was often buried in a textbook or Judy Blume book; the words and pictures were the perfect, barrier-free environment for me.

I'm gonna be unemployed when people read this. Ha.

Differences are scarier now. The dollar isn't so guaranteed if you don't follow what they see as the norm. But I don't moan about it. I just keep working.

Looking back now, thinking about that moment in the lights, with my heart pounding, Oscar in my hand, all I can say is I am grateful and humbled - still to this day. Next to marrying my husband and the birth of my children, it is one of the best days ever.

You can do anything if you set your mind to it. Look out for kids, help them dream and be inspired. We teach calculus in schools, but I believe the most important formula is courage plus dreams equals success.

How many deaf people do you know in real life? Unless they live in a cave, or are 14, which seems to be true for most people in this business, what could I possibly tell them that they don't already know?

I was the youngest and only girl in a family of two older brothers.

At the end of the day, it's about the best interests of the children.

Why are people so interested in other people's relationships? It's like stealing.

Google, as usual, is one step ahead of everyone and provided the means where all videos on YouTube can be automatically captioned through voice-recognition technology without having to be told that it's the responsible thing to do.

If I were offered a cochlear implant today, I would prefer not to have one. But that's not a statement about hearing aids or cochlear implants. It's about who you are.

The Earth does not belong to us: we belong to the Earth.

I have a great husband, great parents and in-laws, and I have help with a nanny. It's not easy, but there are others who do it every day and don't have a high-profile job as I do.

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

It seems we're always in transition and that it's more about trends than it is about what's meaningful.

By the time I was a teenager, my desire to be daring and taste everything got me in trouble. Too often, I was in the company of kids my parents would call 'wild.'

Maybe my way of communicating through sign made me more in tune with my body and how it moved. Who knows? I just know when I saw a stage for the first time, I wanted to be on it.

I've been around since I was 19, I won the Oscar when I was 21, I've had a couple of TV series. I've continued to work despite the predictions of some naysayers.

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 hope I inspire people who hear. Hearing people have the ability to remove barriers that prevent deaf people from achieving their dreams.

Humor comes in all forms, and everyone has their cup of tea about what makes them laugh. But the day we censor humor is a sad one for sure.

There is nothing better than being a parent. It is the most challenging job one could ever ask for. I love being a mom and I love being a friend to my children as well.

I am writing my second novel for children for Simon and Schuster.

It was my father who instilled the 'never say no' attitude I carry around with me today, and who instilled in me a sense of wonder, always taking us on adventures in the car, never telling us the destination.

I'm a proud person who happens to be deaf. I don't want to change it. I don't want to wake up and suddenly say, 'Oh my God, I can hear.' That's not my dream. It's not my dream. I've been raised deaf. I'm used to the way I am. I don't want to change it. Why would I ever want to change? Because I'm used to this, I'm happy.

The only thing I can't do is hear. I can drive, I have a life with four kids, I work on TV, I do movies, so the deafness question, is it that they want to know because, what? Not sure.

When it comes down to it, it's about who you know, and who's a fan. It's about whether you're the right age, whether you're hot or not, whether the studio is into you or not.

There are many deaf people who couldn't imagine living in a marriage without someone who doesn't speak their language. For me, I believe that hearing or deaf is fine as long as both parties are willing to communicate in each other's language. But if there's no communication, then the marriage, I believe, will be difficult if not doomed.

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.

What parent has it easy? I just never make the difficulty of it an obstacle. I just do it.

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.