I'm the only one in my family who is deaf, and there are still conversations that go around me that I miss out on. And I ask what's going on, and I have to ask to be included. But I'm not going to be sad about it. I don't live in sad isolation. It's just a situation I'm used to.

I like to play around with people who don't know me. Often I'm talking to people through my speaker phone, and after 10 minutes or so they say, 'Wait a minute, Marlee, how can you hear me?' They forget I have an interpreter there who is signing to me as they talk. So I say, 'You know what? I can hear on Wednesdays.'

I'm particularly proud of my work with the Starkey Hearing Foundation for whom I raised a million dollars in one day on 'Celebrity Apprentice.' They do great work around the world helping deaf children in developing countries get proper attention and free hearing aids.

Marlee Matlin Quotes