Zach Anner Quotes
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Call yourself and define your relationship to your chair the way you want to, or your disability the way you want to.
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When I get real excited, my muscles go into spasm, so they just shake.
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It's ridiculous that we are in a place where we feel like we can classify and dismiss certain groups of people just because of the way they look, or we have these standards of health - like, cellulite is something you need to get rid of. No, it isn't. It's just a part of people's bodies.
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The waiter just flashed me something that said, "Chew bubblegum." Every morning, when I was about to go to the Oprah competition, my friend used to say this line in a video game to me: "It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum." There's a strict policy that you can't encourage anyone on a reality show, that would give them an edge.
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If everything was perfect, it would always be a person-first conversation, but whenever I have the opportunity, I lead with my personality. If they're looking and seeing the disability first or the chair first, I know that I have the ability to change that.
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I always say, once I get in a room, I can sell myself just fine. I know that not everyone who has a disability has the social skills or cognitive skills that I do, and it may be harder for them to navigate through.
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I use an electric wheelchair because I have no sense of balance, and muscle spasticity has arched my spine like a cat's, while my legs are really just for show.
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I do a lot of conferences, and I did a campaign with the Cerebral Palsy Foundation called "Just Say Hi." They get celebrities to record little messages about how you start a conversation with someone who has a disability, which is to "Just say hi."
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I thought this should be a travel show, because a lot of people with physical disabilities get discouraged.
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The biggest disabilities are when you sabotage yourself mentally, those personal demons that get on your shoulder and you can't shake 'em.
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You really just have to have a good attitude, challenge yourself, and you can accomplish great things.
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CP is a struggle, but it's also been quite the tool for me to find success and deliver a message. It's something about me that's unique, so it'll open a few doors as well as keep a few closed. If you have the other tools that you develop as an individual, talents, things like that, you can harness this to do positive things in the world.
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I make funny shows and put a positive message out there, showing people who have body image issues that... you don't have to look a certain way.
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There's a tendency to treat anyone with a physical disability as inspiring. I call it a pedestal of prejudice, in that you're lifting people up to dismiss them. My whole thing is bringing us down to everyone else's level and saying we're all the same. The struggle is the same.
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The thing to do is just make sure that as part of a disability community, we're not isolating ourselves by drawing differences for the sake of progress.
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Writing every day across nine time zones because Gillian [Grassie] was in Berlin, and we were working together via Skype. It was pretty intense. I'm really happy with how it turned out.
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I would love to get an international version of Riding Shotgun going, because that's what I've been angling at ever since I wanted to do a travel show in the first place.
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I had to write a comedy set and film a show at the same time. And it's the second time I've been up on stage as a stand-up comedian with untested material. I was saying it out loud for the first time that night. It didn't go how I expected, but in the best possible way.
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You can never walk a mile in someone elses shoes, but you can walk a mile in your own and be proud of it.
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There's a whole chapter about my unfortunate manscaping accident. I was so focused on, "I've got to look this certain way and do this to be ready for this." So I missed out on a lot.
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You may not have a physical impairment, but you have things, whether it's finances, self-esteem, it doesn't matter. It's cut from the same cloth.
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My experiences of traveling abroad and going to Italy with my father, having to break down a gigantic electric chair to get on trains. You've got three minutes. You go to Pompeii and there are shockingly few accessible hotels in a city that was covered in volcanic ash.
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I feel that religion can be used as a tool to guide your life and help you connect with other people.
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Everyone who was here [Sheraton Universal Hotel] when I won still works here, so the two biggest moments in my career are intersecting. It's so cool that I can say "hi" to everybody.