Top 610 Deaf Quotes & Sayings

We do need more deaf people in Hollywood. But I don't think that deaf people always have to play a deaf role. I think we can play different roles. We need to see more diversity period. More people of color. More disabled people. More gender diversity. All kinds of diversity.

Beethoven's last quartets were written by a deaf man and should only be listened to by a deaf man.

There are many issues within the deaf community but, for me, none more important than access to education for deaf children.

The deaf community is in a favorable position because they have a national theatre and training groups of their own to get them started. Deaf actors have often acquired very valuable skills and experience before they get their break.

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 know what it's like to be growing up, called 'deaf and mute' and 'deaf and dumb.' They're words that are very degrading and demeaning to people who are deaf and hard of hearing. It's almost... it's almost libelous, if you want to say that.

Deaf people are struggling to find their favorite show or something that represents them. It's hard. There are some examples of shows that have a deaf storyline in one episode, like Cold Case, or another show where they are focusing on the cochlear implant or the medical aspect.

I've seen the needless struggles that deaf children and deaf people face, and that gave me the impetus to write.

I am truly humbled. Not only that I am going to be known as the final Top Model but as a final Top Model who is deaf! And that is an amazing tagline. This proves that deaf people can do anything and everything.

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.

Technology is helping more and more deaf people hear, but here at Gallaudet, we focus on learning and achieving-not on listening. So I would still say deaf people can do anything, except hear.

If someone says: "I don't want to have a cochlear implant, because I want my child to grow up with a rich sense of deaf culture," he must acknowledge that the deaf culture that exists in the world today has a different scale than the deaf culture that's likely to exist in the world 50 years from now.

Due to the closure of many deaf schools in the U.K., deaf children are forced to attend mainstream school. I don't mind this idea: I think it's inclusive, and it better prepares children for life in a hearing world. I don't mind this idea - if that child gets the right support.

I lay in bed the night before the fishing trip and thought it over, about my being deaf, about the years of not letting on I heard what was said, and I wonder if I can ever act any other way again. But I remembered one thing: it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all.

The availability of roles for deaf actors has always been very limited. After 'Switched at Birth' began including deaf actors, a ripple effect has definitely been created in the industry. 'Switched at Birth' has made an impact for the better.

It's exciting to share an art form that I would never have imagined sharing with the deaf community. Doing musicals, it's not like, 'Oh, I'll do a musical with a deaf person.'

How little we realize things till they come upon us personally. I believe I have been a perfect fiend of indifference, even intolerance, of deaf people, and now it's me. Well, I am determined to become the most Delightful Deaf Old Lady that ever existed and I am practicing to that end.

I did my first series lead back in 1991 on a show called 'Reasonable Doubts' and have done many shows with other actors who are deaf. But 'Switched at Birth' is the first TV show where there is more than one actor who is deaf or hard of hearing and who are series regulars.

People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf, it has to be played louder still.

Before working with Deaf West, I had never met a deaf person, and now I can't imagine life without ASL.

I know deaf people. I have discussed the issues with them I've also thought about them a lot so I have some insights that go a little further than people who haven't had contact with the deaf community.

Love is blind but not deaf.

I placed over a thousand deaf people in jobs throughout my career working for the deaf.

I am fourth-generation deaf, which means everyone in my immediate family is deaf. So I grew up always having 100 percent accessibility to language and communication, which was wonderful and something so many deaf people dont have.

All disputation makes the mind deaf; and when people are deaf, I am dumb.

I know a little bit about deaf culture because a friend of mine has been in the deaf culture for awhile. Over the course of 25 years, she and I have talked about many of the issues and concerns for deaf people and deaf culture.

A friend of mine has a son who became deaf through meningitis. He called me one spring and asked me to keep a week out of my schedule because he wanted to start a school for deaf kids. I wanted to help.

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.

One of the things I did when I was in New York, which has a wonderful deaf community, is I have worked on making Broadway more accessible to deaf people.

I am tone deaf.

One of the reasons I wanted to teach deaf children was because it made me very sad that they spoke so clumsily and that they moved with less grace that I knew was possible of deaf people.

To really understand a deaf person's experience, you need someone that is deaf to be able to tell you what their experience is.

But I'm tone deaf - window-shattering tone deaf. I can't sing for the life of me. I can't sing or dance, so no remake of 'Grease' for me!

Raising awareness about the Deaf culture is a huge cause that I advocate. Because both of my parents are deaf, I am passionate about it in an entirely different way.

Deaf? If you're near there, no wonder you are deaf.

Have not all theists painted their Deity as the god of love and goodness? Yet after thousands of years of such preachments the gods remain deaf to the agony of the human race. Confucius cares not for the poverty, squalor and misery of the people of China. Buddha remains undisturbed in his philosophical indifference to the famine and starvation of outraged Hindoos; Jahve continues deaf to the bitter cry of Israel; while Jesus refuses to rise from the dead against his Christians who are butchering each other.

Wherever the deaf have received an education the method by which it is imparted is the burning question of the day with them, for the deaf are what their schooling make them more than any other class of humans. They are facing not a theory but a condition, for they are first, last, and all the time the people of the eye.

I would certainly not want my child to be schizophrenic. I wouldn't want him or her to be a criminal either. If, on the other hand, I had a deaf child, it would help that I have developed a real admiration for Deaf culture.

As long as we have deaf people on earth, we will have signs. And as long as we have our films, we can preserve signs in their old purity. It is my hope that we will all love and guard our beautiful sign language as the noblest gift God has given to deaf people.

There are two worlds: the deaf world and the hearing world. There are some people in the deaf community that feel that hearing people look down on us.

I moved on to the University of California, Berkley, coordinating interpreters for Deaf students at the university. The first year I was at Berkley, we brought in artists, performers, actors, and poets to create a Deaf arts festival. I did a lot of the interpreting for the stage performers. By the second year, I realized that I really liked producing arts festivals that had to do something with signing.

I am deaf to the word 'no'.

Throughout my childhood, I had served as an interpreter for my family. When I left home, I also left the Deaf community. I'd had enough of being a de facto intermediary and wanted to find my own identity. But, over time, I learned to embrace both cultures and find balance between them. I love my Deaf and CODA family and hope they would be proud to call me one of their own.

Even if nobody's singing, just when you talk, you're singing. I'll meet somebody and say, "Oh, I'm tone-deaf." I say, "You're not tone-deaf, because if you were tone-deaf you would speak like that. But you're 'Oh, I'm tone-deaf.' You already sang a song to me."

I am fourth-generation deaf, which means everyone in my immediate family is deaf. So I grew up always having 100 percent accessibility to language and communication, which was wonderful and something so many deaf people don't have.

The deaf community is nearly never portrayed accurately on television/film because most writers never took the time to immerse themselves in the deaf culture before portraying it on television. They also never got to know their deaf actors.

There are people who are born deaf and grow up deaf who don't speak at all, and some of them have told me that they resent a little bit that I do speak. But, you know, I have to be myself. I have to do what I'm comfortable doing.

I grew up in a really musical house where all of my brothers and sisters could sing, but I couldn't sing. Not only could I not sing, I couldn't hear pitch. I was totally tone deaf - legitimately, one hundred percent tone deaf. Nevertheless, I loved music.

I met a girl when I was in third grade. Kids were beating her up - she was deaf - so I walked her home. Her parents were deaf and they gave me the alphabet on a card. I learned it and taught my friends how to do the alphabet - which was outlawed in our school because we used to talk to each other in class.

It was intimidating to play a deaf character. There's a whole culture in the deaf community and I really wanted to know a lot about that and honor it in the work.

I tell cold callers I'm very interested but a bit deaf, my hearing aid is not working properly and can they speak up. The idea is to deliberately miss-hear what they say, ask them to repeat, only louder, and see how loud I can get them to shout. After a while I say "I'm not really deaf" and was just wasting their time, as they were doing with me.

I was born deaf. I was raised in a hearing world and in a deaf world at the same time. I can't say that I like one better than I like the other. I like them both. I speak pretty well; I gesture. If I don't understand something, you know, pen and paper, texting. I use it all.

The interests of the deaf child and his parents may best be served by accepting that he is a deaf person, with an elaborate cultural and linguistic heritage that can enrich his parent's life as it will his own.

I've been involved in the deaf community for years, and my friends in the community that are actors or performers get very frustrated when they see hearing people portraying a deaf role.

I'm not a deaf musician. I'm a musician who happens to be deaf.

I grew up with deaf teachers, and I thought all deaf children should have exposure to deaf educators.

I started to realize that there are a lot of people who are unaware of deaf culture, and I've been given a great platform to reframe the deaf community.

I'm a proud person who happens to be deaf. I don't want to change it. I don't want to wake up and suddenly say, 'Oh my God, I can hear.' That's not my dream. It's not my dream. I've been raised deaf. I'm used to the way I am. I don't want to change it. Why would I ever want to change? Because I'm used to this, I'm happy.

I was a sign language interpreter from when I was 17, but I don't do that anymore. Both of my parents were deaf. I grew up in a deaf household. I don't do any jokes about it really, but yeah that was my day job.

There was once a fiddler who played so beauitully that everybody danced. A deaf man who could not hear the music considered them all insane. Those who are with Jesus in suffering hear this music to which other men are deaf. They dance and do not care if they are considered insane.