Lou Ann Walker

“From 1963 through 1965, a nationwide epidemic of rubella—German measles—caused thousands of women to deliver babies who were handicapped in some way:”

— Lou Ann Walker

“there are signs that are parodies of actual objects and that retain a cleverness even for deaf people. Indeed, these signs are…

— Lou Ann Walker

“I was the only student she’d taught who’d actually known any deaf people. Most of the students in my courses were there…

— Lou Ann Walker

“It was like the old joke: the operation was a success but the patient died. Theories and goals of education don’t matter…

— Lou Ann Walker

“One story was about a deaf man who was driving in the country, when safety bars were lowered across the road at…

— Lou Ann Walker

“Mom turned to me, puzzled. In sign language, she asked, “What was Grandpa saying in the kitchen?” My heart froze.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“Less and less we were freaks. More and more we were curiosities.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“By the time we got back to his house, Grandpa couldn’t reproduce the two signs he’d learned, but he hurried inside to…

— Lou Ann Walker

“her parents had no way of telling her she was going away to school.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“And then she made a sign that sent a chill up my spine. It was a slang sign meaning “I’m deaf,” but…

— Lou Ann Walker

“Like virtually all schools for the deaf at that time, the Indiana State School emphasized oral skills: speaking and lipreading.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“So much had been lost.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“Over the centuries people have blamed everything from eating a green chestnut to being cursed by a gypsy. Others have cited being…

— Lou Ann Walker

“to leave a child without language for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary seems cruel to me.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“This work was throwing me into the intimate functioning of people’s lives.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“A deaf man lived next door to a known robber and one day decided to help himself to the spoils of the…

— Lou Ann Walker

“My father, she insisted, was not born deaf. “Insisted” because there was an even greater stigma attached to genetic deafness (and the…

— Lou Ann Walker

“For so long I’d been doing what I’d accused other people of doing—I was seeing the deafness, not the people.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“If the students didn’t understand the charade, I’d turn and write on the blackboard, but I tried to avoid even that. I…

— Lou Ann Walker

Theories and goals of education don't matter a whit if you don't consider your students to be human beings

— Lou Ann Walker

“Interestingly, very few deaf people actually use sign language in their dreams.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“Thomas Hansen, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Hinckley, carried a gun in the trunk of his car, and wrote letters to…

— Lou Ann Walker

“We don’t sign here, of course. We want to prepare these children to enter the normal world.” She believed that.”

— Lou Ann Walker

“In sign language, conversations like these are unbelievably hard. You must look directly at the person as you talk to him, and…

— Lou Ann Walker

“The notion that the womb is a silent place is pure fantasy. If a person dives under water, he hears very little…

— Lou Ann Walker