~Jane Hirshfield from “For What Binds Us”
“Disability is not a ‘brave struggle’ or ‘courage in the face of adversity’…disability is an art. It’s an ingenious way to live.”
~Neil Marcus, 1993
“Independent Living is not doing things yourself; it is being in control of how things are done.”
~Judith E. Heumann
“I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
God said, No. Her spirit was whole, her body was only temporary.”
~from the poem “I Asked God” by Claudia Minden Weisz
“But I’m alright. I’m alive. That’s all that matters. I use everything I have. That’s all anybody can do. Use all we have.”
~Bob Lujano, member of the U.S.A. quad rugby team & one of the the stars of the movie “Murderball”
Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet
voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’
–Mary Anne Radmacher-Hershey
” ‘Normal day’, let me be aware of the treasure you are…
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.
One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in my pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want,
more than all the world, your return.”
– Mary Jean Iron
“You can think your way out of anything, even pain, if you have to.”
~From the movie “The Mighty”
“Scars are tattoos with better stories.”
~From a Toyota advertisement in Sports Illustrated magazine, June 2002
“They always love it when I don’t die.”
~Jerry Garcia, after being near death in 1987
Someday I’ll fly
Someday I’ll soar
Someday I’ll be something much more
Cause I’m bigger than my body gives me credit for
~John Mayer “Bigger Than My Body”
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin.
At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
~Alfred D. Souza
“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“If your time hasn’t come, not even a doctor can kill you.”
~Mike Perlstein
I’m looking forward to looking back on all this.
~Sandra Knell
I know there is a lesson to be learned here somewhere, but I don’t know what it is.
~Linus Van Pelt
“I have become comfortably numb.”
~Pink Floyd
and on those really, really bad days:
“I don’t care if it hurts. I want to have control. I want a perfect body.
I want a perfect soul. I want you to notice when I’m not around. You’re so fucking special, I wish I was special…but I’m a creep…I’m a
weirdo…what the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here…”
~radiohead “Creep”
and
“And being a fool, he was simple minded, he didn’t see a king. He only saw a man alone and in pain.”
~Robin Williams, The Fisher King
and
“Having depression and being in a suicidal state twists reality. It doesn’t matter if someone has a wife or is well loved. They get so consumed by the depression and by the feelings of not being worthy that they forget all the wonderful things in their lives.”
~Julie Cerel, a psychologist and board chair of American Association of Suicidology
and usually when I get over that feeling, the following quote applies:
It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven’t done badly.
People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
~scientist Stephen Hawking, Interview with The Guardian (UK) September 27, 2005
or this:
“And the sign says ‘Everybody Welcome. Come in. Kneel down and pray.’ But then they passed around the plate at the end of it all, and I didn’t have a penny to pay. So I got me a pen and a paper, and I made up my own little sign. It said ‘Thank you Lord for thinking about me, I’m alive and doing fine.'”
~”Signs”, Five Man Electrical Band (later remade by Tesla)
And finally:
“I’ve survived a lot of things, and I’ll probably survive this.”
~JD Sallinger
My Bleeding Ink 