“I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.”

“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.”

“And the blind man said to the deaf man, "Do you see what I hear?”

“Kindness is a language the dumb can speak and the deaf can hear and understand.”

“…I see that something’s are hard to do, but that you can’t live with yourself if you don’t do them. I see that the best way to help myself is to help the people I care about. The rest will sort itself out. It has to, right?”

“I was the ref. I was the ref they didn’t know about. Deaf and dumb. Invisible as a wall. I wanted no one to win”