Marlee Matlin Quotes
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I hope I inspire people who hear. Hearing people have the ability to remove barriers that prevent deaf people from achieving their dreams.
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I did three DVD's for 'Baby Einstein,' teaching babies how to sign. It really helps a parent communicate because babies can't talk. But it has been proven that they can communicate using their hands to communicate. So sign language is a great tool in that way.
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I guess not being able to hear just made me adventurous and daring. And in most cases, that didn't make my parents very happy with me.
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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.
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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.
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Hollywood embraced me in the late '80s because there was a good project I was in and it was different. Nowadays, it's about corporate mentality, box office, youth.
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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.
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I was the youngest and only girl in a family of two older brothers.
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I like to play around with people who don't know me. Often I'm talking to people through my speaker phone, and after 10 minutes or so they say, 'Wait a minute, Marlee, how can you hear me?' They forget I have an interpreter there who is signing to me as they talk. So I say, 'You know what? I can hear on Wednesdays.'
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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?
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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.
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The hearing aids are very helpful for speech reading. Without the hearing aids, my voice becomes very loud, and I cannot control the quality of my voice.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When I was 11, I knew that I wanted to write a kid's book and tell the world what it was like being deaf.
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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.
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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.
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What the Bleep Do We Know was not written with a deaf person in mind, but when they met me, it clicked with them to have me in it. But that happens with a lot of actors in Hollywood, not just with me.
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Living modestly in a suburban neighborhood while trying to support four children through private school is not extravagant or living large.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.