Quotes from Marlee Matlin

I'm not broke. Like everybody else, I owe money.

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

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.

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.

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.'

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 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.

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.

I'm tired of seeing listings of programs I want to watch that aren't closed captioned. And I'm tired of looking for the symbol on the side of the video package.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 as they can... just differently.

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

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.

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.'

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 like to say that the greatest handicap of deafness does not lie in the ear, it lies in the mind. 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.

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.