Quotes from Marlee Matlin

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.

I'm different, and my manner invites questions. I'm never afraid to answer.

I began acting on stage when I was 7 years old. My first role was as Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz' at Chicago's Center on Deafness in Northbrook, Illinois.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

For people who are afraid to talk about cancer, for people who are afraid to communicate with their loved ones about it, and for the people who want to pretend cancer doesn't exist, either delaying diagnosis or not getting regular checkups, the consequences can be fatal. Doing nothing about cancer will kill you.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 became deaf when I was 18 months old. And I learned to sign when I was 5 years old.

I learned to speak first, and then to sign. I have never really known what it was like to hear, so I can't compare hearing aids to normal hearing.

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.

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

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

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.

YouTube is akin to having my own network.

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.