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“When you focus on someone's disability you'll overlook their abilities, beauty and uniqueness. Once you learn to accept and love them for who they are, you subconsciously learn to love yourself unconditionally.”
― Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir

“I Have a Dream... someday my son, Zyon and ALL individuals with disabilities will be seen as HUMAN beings.

I Have a Dream... someday the human & civil rights of individuals with disabilities are honored and they are treated as equals.

I Have a Dream... someday ALL parents who have children with disabilities see their child as a blessing and not a burden.

I Have a Dream... someday there will be more jobs and opportunities for individuals with disabilities.

I Have a Dream... someday there will be UNITY "within" the disabled community.

I HAVE A DREAM!!!”
― Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir

“Often people ask, "How can you say you're blessed to have a son with Down syndrome?" My outlook on life has forever changed. I see my own challenges differently. He's always showing me that life is so much bigger than self.”
― Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir

“My children taught me the true meaning of unconditional love.”
― Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir

“My faith has strengthen. God has shown me through my son with Down syndrome to not take anything for granted. I'm more grateful.”
― Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir

“Dad they think she has Down Syndrome." He smiled genuinely as his eyes welled up with tears. "That's okay. We love her.”
― Kelle Hampton, Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected--A Memoir

“I know of other mothers who have children with disabilities,and right away they loved them and decided to fight for them.
That isn’t my story.”
― Gillian Marchenko, Sun Shine Down: A Memoir

“Just as when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”
― Cecelia Ahern, The Year I Met You

“Begin with the soft smelted upturned heart-shaped mouth made for smiling a smile kept for kindness, tenderness, incapable of malice.

Am I going too fast for you?

The almond eyes see out through their sleepy epicanthic fold. Trusting and calm, if a flicker from slowness, a further flicker from stupidity.

Settled in slow-motion beauty, heart-breaking beauty.”
― Craig Raine

“All along I have the answer, it's written in my face, this is neither bad luck nor curse, but a show of God's grace. I may sometimes know why, I may sometimes feel doubt, but I'm not here to fit in, I was born to stand out.”
― Darius Andaya, I Too Can Be Special!

“Every one of us is like the pieces of a puzzle. Each one unique and with our own special place where only we can fit, and without every one of us, the picture wouldn’t be complete.”
― Gina McMurchy-Barber, The Jigsaw Puzzle King

“Maybe you're not difficult to live with at all, maybe you're just a busy, successful, beautiful woman who won't settle for anything but the best.”
― Cecelia Ahern

“But you are proof that you can think you know someone yet never really know them at all.”
― Cecelia Ahern, The Year I Met You

“No matter who you are or how you’re born, your arrival deserves to be celebrated.”
― Ashley Asti, Up: A Love Letter to the Down Syndrome Community

“I think one of the things I’ve learned as a writer...is that speech is a form of power in this world. As a writer, being able to articulate what other people may be feeling but perhaps struggle to put into words themselves, it is valued. But I also believe we—all of us—communicate in silence, in energy, in a love that extends from our hearts. And, to me, this is another form of inner power.”
― Ashley Asti, Up: A Love Letter to the Down Syndrome Community

“When I would later ask her, What makes someone beautiful?, she would tell me: 'I think it’s what’s inside someone. I think it’s kindness in someone’s heart that makes them beautiful.' And she would add, 'And it’s how they treat others.' Compassion is beauty, too.”
― Ashley Asti, Up: A Love Letter to the Down Syndrome Community

“I definitely think mothers of children with disabilities have to have extraordinary courage every day...Because we all know our children have value and worth and potential, but the everyday world sometimes doesn’t.'
—Linda Strobel in Up: A Love Letter to the Down Syndrome Community”
― Ashley Asti, Up: A Love Letter to the Down Syndrome Community

“People with Down syndrome can do anything—really, really, really anything!”
― Brittany Schiavone

“Most notably, perhaps, children with Down syndrome have an extraordinary sweetness of temperament, as if in inheriting an extra chromosome they had acquired a concomitant loss of cruelty and malice (if there is any doubt that genotypes can influence temperament or personality, then a single encounter with a Down child can lay that idea to rest).”
― Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History

“Jacky van Gelder brengt leuke Ziggo Sport.”
― Petra Hermans, Voor een betere wereld

“When children are brought into the world with an extra chromosome—with Down syndrome, that is—the first words parents often hear are, 'I’m sorry,' as if Down syndrome itself is something to be down about. It’s not. I want to say, 'Congratulations.' I want to say, 'What a beautiful gift you’ve brought into the world, one more being here for a reason, here with purpose.' I want to say, 'Oh, mama,' or 'Oh, dad—this new little being is going to lift you up.”
― Ashley Asti, Up: A Love Letter to the Down Syndrome Community

“She represents a step toward creating a world where you can have Down syndrome and still dream big. Where you can have Down syndrome and still be seen as beautiful and worthy.”
― Ashley Asti, Up: A Love Letter to the Down Syndrome Community

“We have an almost equal mix of children with and without disabilities. Thorin wouldn’t be the only child with Down syndrome.��
Ward asked, “How’d you create that ratio? Why would parents when’d their children here if they didn’t have a disability?��
Louise smiled. “Some parents believe diversity of all kinds is important to their children’s development. Also we have numerous siblings here. Parents want their children at the same school.”
― Kari Wagner-Peck, Not Always Happy: An Unusual Parenting Journey