I was 21 years and 218 days old when I received the Academy Award for Best Actress. I had just stepped into an imaginary world that I'd seen at a distance for years.

I've been around since I was 19, I won the Oscar when I was 21, I've had a couple of TV series. I've continued to work despite the predictions of some naysayers.

Deaf people can do anything, except hear.

When I was 13, I told Henry Winkler I wanted to act. He said, Do it and don't let anyone stand in your way. His validation just made it all the more true. I haven't stopped thanking him since.

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.

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

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

I have made the choices that work best for me. I know I cannot please everyone, and that's fine.

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

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

When I learned to sign and speak at the same time, the whole world opened up to me. That's the beauty of encouraging kids who are deaf to use whatever it takes to communicate.

The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.

What a strange power there is in clothing.

Curiosity is its own reason.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

You should point to the whole man Jesus and say, That is God.

I'm comedy's forgotten nearly man.

In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.

Let us never lose hope! God loves us always, even with our mistakes and sins.

Write. Don't think. Relax.

Audiences know what to expect, and that is all that they are prepared to believe in.