Deafness Quotes - Page 2

• Given her deafness, the auditory part of the brain, deprived of its usual input, had started to generate a spontaneous activity of its own, and this took the form of musical hallucinations, mostly musical memories from her earlier life. The brain needed to stay incessantly active, and if it was not getting its usual stimulation..., it would create its own stimulation in the form of hallucinations.

  Oliver Sacks

  Memories, Musical, Brain

  Oliver Sacks (2011). “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain”, p.64, Pan Macmillan

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• You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.

  Geoffrey Willans

  Inspiration, Learning, German Language

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• 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.

  Marlee Matlin

  Father, Grandmother, California

  "My Father’s Chutzpah" by Marlee Matlin, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 17, 2011.

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• It's different for each individual. It's different when you talk about homosexuality. It's different when you talk about a malady like deafness. Everybody might have a different response to that and that's what makes it an interesting subject to throw in a movie.

  Famke Janssen

  Interesting, Different, Might

  "The Phoenix Rises as Famke Janssen and James Marsden Talk X-Men: The Last Stand". Interview with Evan Jacobs, movieweb.com. May 23, 2006.

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• People after death become complete again. The blind can see, the deaf can hear, cripples are no longer crippled after all their vital signs have ceased to exist.

  Copyright: Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Family Limited Partnership.

  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

  People, Vital Signs, Blind

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• I know deaf people. I have discussed the issues with them I've also thought about them a lot so I have some insights that go a little further than people who haven't had contact with the deaf community.

  Richard Masur

  Issues, People, Community

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• One of the things I did when I was in New York, which has a wonderful deaf community, is I have worked on making Broadway more accessible to deaf people.

  Camryn Manheim

  New York, People, Community

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• Instant messaging and chat rooms have basically created a level playing field for deaf people.

  Vinton Cerf

  People, Level Playing Field, Levels

  "Vint Cerf: What I've Learned" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. April 24, 2008.

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• Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient, ever new. Late have I loved you. You have called to me, and have called out, and have shattered my deafness. You have blazed forth with light and have put my blindness to flight! You have sent forth fragrance, and I have drawn in my breath, and I pant after you. I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst after you. You have touched me, and I have burned for your peace.

  Saint Augustine

  Light, Hunger And Thirst, Ancient

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• And I found out about the wonderful world of sign language. I suddenly realized: If we as a society recognize Jewish culture, gay culture and Latino culture, we must recognize that this is a coherent culture, too. I think deafness is a disability for social constructionist reasons.

  Andrew Solomon

  Gay, Thinking, Culture

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Poor children live in a particularly dangerous world--an urban world of broken stair railings, of busy streets serving as playgrounds, of lead paint, rats and rat poisons, or a rural world where families do not enjoy the minimal levels of public health accepted as standard for nearly a century. Whether in city or country, this is a world where cavities go unfilled and ear infections threatening permanent deafness go untreated. It is world where even a small child learns to be ashamed of the way he or she lives.

  Kenneth Keniston

  Country, Children, Dangerous World

  Kenneth Keniston, Carnegie Council on Children (1977). “All our children: the American family under pressure”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• Why shouldn't I be interested in politics? That is to say, what blindness, what deafness, what density of ideology would have to weigh me down to prevent me from being interested in what is probably the most crucial subject to our existence, that is to say the society in which we live, the economic relations within which it functions, and the system of power which defines the regular forms and the regular permissions and prohibitions of our conduct. The essence of our life consists, after all, of the political functioning of the society in which we find ourselves.

  Michel Foucault

  Essence, Political, Density

  Source: www.nicklewis.org

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• Deafness produces bizarre effects, reversing the natural order of things; the interchange of letters is the conversation of the deaf, and the only link with society. I would be in despair, for instance, over seeing you speak, but, instead, I am only too happy to hear you write.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Writing, Order, Despair

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• Instead of giving in to the greatest misfortune that can happen at my age, deafness, I busy myself in searching out all possible compensations, and I apply myself much more to all the amusements that are here within my grasp.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Giving, Age, Amusement

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• The late Président de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind--he had been so for such a long time--but I swear that I do not know how to be deaf: I cannot get used to it, and I am as humiliated and distressed by it today as I was during the first week. No philosophy in the world can palliate deafness.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Philosophy, Long, World

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• There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind, and turns a nation, a civilization, into a regiment of ghosts--obedient ghosts or tortured ghosts.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Betrayal, Philosophy, War

  Jacob Bronowski (1976). “The ascent of man”

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• Differences among deaf people are okay, but we need to recognize those differences and work together.

  I. King Jordan

  Differences, People, Working Together

  "Gallaudet University Interview With Former President I. King Jordan". Interview with Ken Adelman, www.washingtonian.com. March 1, 2006.

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• When I learned to sign and speak at the same time, the whole world opened up to me. That's the beauty of encouraging kids who are deaf to use whatever it takes to communicate.

  Marlee Matlin

  Kids, Use, World

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• 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.

  Marlee Matlin

  Communication, Party, Believe

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• John Glenn's father, known as Herschel, was mostly deaf from injuries in World War I. To help out at home, young Glenn sold rhubarb all over town from the family garden.

  Bill Dedman

  Father, War, Home

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• I'm the only one in my family who is deaf, and there are still conversations that go around me that I miss out on. And I ask what's going on, and I have to ask to be included. But I'm not going to be sad about it. I don't live in sad isolation. It's just a situation I'm used to.

  Marlee Matlin

  Missing, Isolation, Deaf

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• On the other hand, there are only so many people who really knew how she was exactly, like what did her accent sound like, and the fact that she developed profound deafness when she was first running the Harriet Lane.

  Mary Stuart Masterson

  Running, Hands, People

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• There is no relation to sound for deaf people. It is a totally different mental process.

  Richard Masur

  People, Sound, Different

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• I know a little bit about deaf culture because a friend of mine has been in the deaf culture for awhile. Over the course of 25 years, she and I have talked about many of the issues and concerns for deaf people and deaf culture.

  John Scalzi

  Issues, Years, People

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• This willful deafness to religious argument, so new in our history, has had various effects. A principal one is encouragement of the already widespread view that religion doesn't have a lot to do with modern concerns - the way people live, the way they think.

  William Murchison

  Christian, Encouragement, Religious

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