Favorite Harriet McBryde Johnson quotes

My copy of "too late to die young" has several bent pages with underlined passages. Here are a couple of my favorites.

"We need to confront the life-killing stereotype that says we're all about suffering. We need to bear witness to our pleasures."

About a trip to Cuba, "It's the old socialist formula, 'From each according to ability, to each according to need,' played out one to one. It's hard to pin down, but I get the feeling that being a crip is no big deal here. People talk to me. On a family trip to Mexico, people were afraid to look at me; they sometimes made the sign of the cross, my mother helpfully explained, to protect themselves against the evil eye. In Paris, cabs wouldn't stop. Even in Charleston, where I am so much at home, people tend to address my able-bodied companions. In Havana, I'm a person."

Not sure where this one is from, but it is quoted in the Inclusion Daily Express story,
"The presence or absence of a disability doesn't predict quality of life."