Anna Sortino > Quotes

“I’m not ashamed of my disability or anything like that. What bothers me is trying to fit into the hearing world. That I’m constantly the odd one out, the one who always has to explain or adjust.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign

“There’s so much energy, emotion, and personality that goes into ASL, and it clearly translates to their approach to this job. The way they move around, eager to take up space. It’s not just vocabulary and grammar that I need to learn, but also how to set my expressions and movements free.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign

“Being deaf isn’t something that needs to be fixed.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign

“You can keep finding yourself again and again. The important part of all of that is just being true to what your heart tells you.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign

“All these necessary accommodations bring attention to me, which I hate.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign

“People give too much power to labels. It can feel exclusionary, whether intentional or not.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign

“Because right now, they know I’m not hearing, but I don’t fit their expectations of deafness, either.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign

“What people don’t understand is that when I’m wearing my hearing aids, there’s still a lot that I miss. And without them, there’s still a lot I could catch by relying on lipreading and deductive reasoning.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign

“Plus, teachers accuse me of “talking during class” whenever I try to ask the person next to me to repeat what the assignment is—after struggling to follow the lesson in the first place.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign

“Cures are a tricky thing. Like, I don´t want a cure for my deafness. I don´t want to live in world where the desire is to eliminate all disabilites. But at the same time, I don´t want people to have to live with pain or symptoms that could be improved.”
― Anna Sortino, On the Bright Side

“Don´t limit your happiness now because you´re afarid of what the future could be.”
― Anna Sortino, On the Bright Side

“Anyone can become disabled at any time.”
― Anna Sortino, On the Bright Side

“Camp Gray Wolf needs to stay alive. It’s here that we can find our community— a place where we can be ourselves, unapologetically.”
― Anna Sortino, Give Me a Sign