Michael J. Fox Quotes About Parkinson

Quotes about: Parkinson

• When prescribing one of the drugs I take, my doctor warned me of a common side effect: exaggerated, intensely vivid dreams. To be honest, I've never really noticed the difference. I've always dreamt big.

  Michael J. Fox

  Dream, Doctors, Differences

• It’s all about control. Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to become master of your own destiny, you have more to learn. Parkinson’s is a perfect metaphor for lack of control. Every unwanted movement in my hand or arm, every twitch that I cannot anticipate or arrest, is a reminder that even in the domain of my own being, I am not calling the shots. I tried to exert control by drinking myself to a place of indifference, which just exacerbated the sense of miserable hopelessness.

  Michael J. Fox

  Drinking, Destiny, Hands

• I have no choice about whether or not I have Parkinson's. I have nothing but choices about how I react to it. In those choices, there's freedom to do a lot of things in areas that I wouldn't have otherwise found myself in.

  Michael J. Fox

  Choices, Found, Parkinson's

• I discovered that I was part of a Parkinson's community with similar experiences and similar questions that I'd been dealing with alone.

  Michael J. Fox

  Community, Parkinson's, Parkinson

• If you asked my kids to describe me, they'd go through a whole list of words before even thinking about Parkinson's. And honestly, I don't think about it that much either. I talk about it because it's there, but it's not my totality.

  Michael J. Fox

  Kids, Thinking, Lists

  "Michael J Fox: 'Nobody pities me and that's great. I couldn't stand it'". Interview with Hadley Freeman, www.theguardian.com. October 6, 2013.

• The first part of my life was to be an actor and maybe have some success at that. Then [it was time] to find somebody to be in a relationship with and have a life that way. Because of Parkinson's, I had to change: How can I be of service here? Is there something unique to my situation that I can use to help people? I did not have the wherewithal to invent that. It just happened in front of me and had me join in.

  Michael J. Fox

  Unique, People, Use

  Interview with Rosemary Ellis, February 18, 2009.

• I often say now I don't have any choice whether or not I have Parkinson's, but surrounding that non-choice is a million other choices that I can make.

  Michael J. Fox

  Choices, Parkinson's, Millions

• With Parkinson's, it's like you're in the middle of the street and you're stuck there in cement shoes and you know a bus is coming at you, but you don't know when. You think you can hear it rumbling, but you have a lot of time to think. And so you just don't live that moment of the bus hitting you until it happens. There's all kinds of room in that space.

  Michael J. Fox

  Thinking, Shoes, Space

  "Happy Birthday, Michael". Interview with Rosemary Ellis, www.goodhousekeeping.com. May 5, 2011.

• One of the great things about Parkinson's, in a superficial way, is it relieved me of vanity. I don't worry about what I look like, because it's literally out of my hands. But on a deeper level, it gives you a real humility, because you have to deal every day with the fact that you compromise.

  Michael J. Fox

  Real, Humility, Vanity

  "Happy Birthday, Michael". Interview with Rosemary Ellis, www.goodhousekeeping.com. May 5, 2011.

• A lot of times, when you have a disability, one of the things you deal with is other people's projections of what your experience is and their fear about it, and not seeing the experience you're having. There's nothing horrifying about it to me. It is what I deal with. It is my reality and my life, but it's not horrible.

  Michael J. Fox

  Reality, People, Disease

  "Michael J. Fox Talks THE MICHAEL J. FOX SHOW, How Much the Show Draws from Real Life, Parkinson’s Humor, Has He Seen MTV’s TEEN WOLF, and More". Interview with Christins Radish, collider.com. July 29, 2013.

• I happen to be a Parkinson's patient. I'm not fearful of my condition or my future - but if someone is looking in my eyes for fear, then they see their own fear reflected back at them.

  Michael J. Fox

  Eye, Patient, Parkinson's

• As much as Parkinson's is about movement, the end stage is being frozen. So the more I let that happen, the more I'm gonna be stuck within that and unable to reverse it.

  Michael J. Fox

  Frozen, Movement, Ends

• You've probably read in People that I'm a nice guy - but when the doctor first told me I had Parkinson's, I wanted to kill him.

  Michael J. Fox

  Nice, Doctors, People

  "Oprah Talks to Michael J. Fox & Tracy Pollan". Interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.oprah.com. March 15, 2002.

• In fact, Parkinson's has made me a better person. A better husband, father and overall human being.

  Michael J. Fox

  Husband, Father, Facts

• So what I say about Tracy is this: Tracy's big challenge is not having a Parkinson's patient for a husband. It's having me for a husband. I happen to be a Parkinson's patient.

  Michael J. Fox

  Husband, Challenges, Patient

  "Happy Birthday, Michael". Interview with Rosemary Ellis, www.goodhousekeeping.com. May 5, 2011.

• To be brutally honest, for much of that time, I was the only person in the world with Parkinson's. Of course, I mean that in the abstract. I had become acutely aware of people around me who appears to have the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, but as long as they didn't identify with me, I was in no rush to identify with them. My situation allowed, if not complete denial, at least a thick padding of insulation.

  Michael J. Fox

  Mean, Long, People

• Just as Parkinson's isn't a big topic of conversation in my house, neither is my career.

  Michael J. Fox

  Careers, House, Topics

  "'It's the gift that keeps on taking'". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. April 10, 2009.

• The way I look at life, and the way I look at the reality of Parkinson's, is that sometimes it's frustrating and sometimes it's funny. I need to look at it that way, and I think other people will look at it that way.

  Michael J. Fox

  Thinking, Reality, People

  "Michael J. Fox Talks THE MICHAEL J. FOX SHOW, How Much the Show Draws from Real Life, Parkinson’s Humor, Has He Seen MTV’s TEEN WOLF, and More". Interview with Christins Radish, collider.com. July 29, 2013.

• I think we all get our own bag of hammers. We all get our own Parkinson's. We all have our own thing. I think that we'll look at it through the filter of that experience, and we'll say, "Yeah, I need to laugh at my stuff, too."

  Michael J. Fox

  Thinking, Laughing, Stuff

  "Michael J. Fox Talks THE MICHAEL J. FOX SHOW, How Much the Show Draws from Real Life, Parkinson’s Humor, Has He Seen MTV’s TEEN WOLF, and More". Interview with Christins Radish, collider.com. July 29, 2013.

• I don't think [Parkinson's] is Gothic nastiness. There's nothing on the surface that's horrible about someone with a shaky hand. There's nothing horrible about someone in their life saying, "God, I'm really tired of this shaky hand thing" and me saying, "Me, too." That's our reality. We have no control over it.

  Michael J. Fox

  Tired, Thinking, Reality

  "Michael J. Fox Talks the Michael J. Fox Show, How Much the Show Draws From Real Life, Parkinson’s Humor, Has He Seen Mtv’s Teen Wolf, and More". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. July 29, 2013.

• My age makes me think how valuable life is. How bad is something like Parkinson's in relation to not having life at all?

  Michael J. Fox

  Thinking, Age, Life Is

  Source: www.goodhousekeeping.com

• The moment I understood this - that my Parkinson's was the one thing I wasn't going to change - I started looking at the things I could change, like the way research is funded.

  Michael J. Fox

  Research, Way, Moments

  "The Givers : What Inspires Michael J. Fox? A Very Personal Interview". Interview with Marlo Thomas, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 5, 2012.

• Almost instantly [after my announcement of Parkinson's], I saw the first couple of days the coverage was about, you know, "Fox's Parkinson's, blah, blah, blah." Then, two days after that, I saw the coverage turn. It started to become, "Can young people get Parkinson's?" All of a sudden, the conversation turned to become about that. And that was one of the first eye-opening things.

  Michael J. Fox

  Couple, Eye, Two

  "Interview with Michael J. Fox". Interview with Rosemary Ellis, www.goodhousekeeping.com. February 18, 2009.

• I take the medication for myself so I can transact, not for anyone else. But I am aware that it is empowering for people to see what I do and, for the most part, people in the Parkinson's community are just really happy that Parkinson's is getting mentioned, and not in a pitying way.

  Michael J. Fox

  People, Empowering, Community

  "Michael J Fox: 'Nobody pities me and that's great. I couldn't stand it'". Interview with Hadley Freeman, www.theguardian.com. October 6, 2013.

• I didn't just want to be a poster boy and sign on to publicize somebody else's method of operations. If I was going to put myself out there, I wanted to make sure that it was to an end. So I got involved with this congressional hearing about Parkinson's being underfunded.

  Michael J. Fox

  Boys, Want, Hearing

  Interview with Rosemary Ellis, www.goodhousekeeping.com. February 18, 2009.

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin