479 Quotes About Disability

Able-bodied people aren’t expected to do superhuman feats each time they walk out the door. It should be enough to simply exist. We could start with ending abuse and neglect and giving everyone a more level playing field. We shouldn’t have to tell you we want to cure cancer to get a few extra bucks. We should be able to say we just want to be able to ride the bus like the other citizens in the city. To enjoy life the way everyone else takes for granted.

But the thing is that it has provided Mrs Scorrier with a pretext for saying what, I own, has quite sunk my spirits. She told me that Charlotte has a horror of *deformity*, which makes her wish that just now, when she is in a delicate situation, it might have been possible for Aubrey to visit friends.

You don't have to be somebody, just be yourself and that's enough.

We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.

For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We're not real people. We are there to inspire. And in fact, I am sitting on this stage looking like I do in this wheelchair, and you are probably kind of expecting me to inspire you.

I’m not going to be one of those amputees who dances and everyone finds inspiring. I’m not inspiring. I’m just me.

Disabled people are now having to beg for small payments that once were held up as entitlements, and a way of making society fairer.

I am not here to inspire you. I am here to tell you that we have been lied to about disability. Yeah, we've been sold the lie that disability is a Bad Thing, capital B, capital T. It's a bad thing, and to live with a disability makes you exceptional. It's not a bad thing, and it doesn't make you exceptional.

The hyping of disabled athletes into superhuman status by Channel 4 only deepens our wounds, inflicted by continual assaults on our daily lives. It truly seems that the only acceptable disabled person is a Paralympian – and then only for a few weeks.