Christopher Reeve Quotes

In the early '80s, the public discourse about AIDS was divisive and ugly. Some elected officials said the disease was God's revenge on people who lived a certain lifestyle. The federal government wouldn't fund research for a cure. But, today, the NIH spends $1.8 billion on AIDS research annually, and the virus is no longer an epidemic in this country. So, how did we get from that climate of fear and animosity in the early '80s to where we are today? Well, it's by the extraordinary efforts of ordinary individuals, then change occurred, as it has time and time again throughout our history.

Even though I don't personally believe in the Lord, I try to behave as though He was watching.

I'm not living the life I thought I would lead, but it does have meaning, purpose. There is love... there is joy... there is laughter.

[I]t seems to me that this past century has accomplished two Civil Rights movements. First, the right for blacks and Hispanics and people from all different nationalities to take their place in the middle of society and that has been achieved at great cost. It is a tremendous struggle in America, but now we think nothing of walking into an office and finding that a black person is the president of the company instead of a janitor cleaning the hallways. And then we learned that the talent that blacks and Hispanics have, always had, their intelligence, dedication and willingness to work is no less than anybody else. They have been able to persevere and finally I think we have really overcome tremendous amounts of prejudice, not only in the United States, but throughout the world. The second great Civil Rights movement was equality for women. It started at the end of the last century. Women finally got to vote. We've gotten all the way to the point now where women aren't expected to stay home and just be mothers and it's okay to be a single parent and it's okay to go out and pursue your ambition and your dreams. And that's been a very important breakthrough because there are so many areas where women are more talented and have more to offer than men do. And now we are beginning to see everybody working side by side in society and in the workplace. But, there remains one HUGE minority that is still terribly discriminated against. And that population is the disabled population. And that comprises 1/5 of the world's population. In the United States, for example, we have 54 million disabled people and the thing that's very difficult is when blacks and Hispanics and women were fighting for equal rights there was a level of discomfort. But nothing approaching what happens when "normal" people look at the disabled and are uncomfortable. That is a prejudice that they MUST overcome because we're not in a position to always look our very best or to feel our very best, or to be pleasing to the eye because we have suffered terrible debilitating diseases and injuries. But what's happening now is the kind of discrimination that is so bad and I want to tell you that it exceeds any prejudice that ever occurred before in the previous civil rights movements.

A hero is someone who, in spite of weakness, doubt or not always knowing the answers, goes ahead and overcomes anyway.

On the other hand, you have to understand that our allies are not rogue nations. The U.K., Australia, Canada, Singapore, Israel, India, these are just some of the countries that have already passed therapeutic cloning. In fact, England passed it twice. The House of Lords considered it, passed it, the pro-life groups objected to it, they took time to listen to those groups and then they passed it a second time. And therapeutic cloning is allowed with strict government oversight. And to say that those countries are less moral than we are, I think is hubris on our part that's out of control.

What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely.

[A] scientist at Washington University, Dr. John McDonald, whom I have been working with says that there is no way he would inject stem cells without being able to use my own DNA for safety reasons. So without the ability to use my own DNA, without that somatic cell transfer, I am out of luck. The other thing is to please remember that therapeutic cloning, nucleus transplantation, is done with unfertilized eggs. You keep referring to destroying an embryo. I think that destroying an embryo is what happens when the leftovers from fertility clinics are thrown out. We can agree that they go to the garbage routinely. But to say that an unfertilized egg has the same status, I believe is incorrect, and I think that this is the line of research that holds so much promise and can also get us around the ethical quandary that we keep putting ourselves in. We are talking about an unfertilized egg that will never leave the lab, that will never be implanted in a womb, and that can be regulated. And it is crucial for research.

The prosperity that we've enjoyed in the 90's has spawned a new breed of individuals who have amassed tremendous fortunes at a very young age. Many of them have reaped the rewards of a stock market that seems to have no upper limit. Others have moved swiftly into the fast lane of the information superhighway, and achieved a net worth in the billions long before their 40th birthday. Often they literally don't know what to do with that much money. Unfortunately, philanthropy is not something many of them perceive as an important responsibility of the wealthy. While of course there are a number of notable exceptions, too many of these young billionaires become obsessed with privacy and are more likely to build half a dozen homes in different parts of the world than to give back to society. In the early years of this century, the notion of what it meant to be a "gentleman" informed the actions of the very rich - the Vanderbilts, Astors, Rockefellers, Carnegies, and the like. They too built "cottages" in Newport, and enjoyed their yachts. But they also created foundations, endowed universities, built hospitals and libraries, and donated land for public use. I don't think it's a wild stretch of the imagination to believe that if they knew that 300 million dollars would cure paralysis in 5 years instead of 15, they would have reached for their checkbooks. But we must not wallow in nostalgia for the Gilded Age, when in fact, there is so much potential in the present. Ten corporations could each give 30 million dollars without any undue hardship. When people ask me what are my hopes and dreams for the new Millennium, my answer is I hope technology will not diminish genuine human contact and compassion. I still believe that when people really make the effort to understand each other, the possibilities are limitless. The solutions to the problems we will face in the 21st century --- such as overpopulation, the environment, education, and disease --- will only be achieved by every one of us doing our part. We must appeal to the government, the private sector, venture capitalists, corporations of all sizes, and every individual who can only afford to give 5 dollars to help further the cause. You in the media can lead the way by creating awareness and affecting public opinion. In the last hundred years, we invented the automobile, the airplane, and weapons of mass destruction. We journeyed to the moon and built shiny new cities throughout the country. We concerned ourselves with material success, convenience, and a higher standard of living. Now it's time for America to take care of its own. The life expectancy for Americans has practically doubled over the course of this century. Now it is our responsibility to ensure that from cradle to grave, these years are ones of quality and productivity, not pain and suffering. The time is now, at the dawn of a new Millennium.

For the record, I am a C-2 ventilator-dependent quadriplegic, which means that I am paralyzed from the shoulders down and unable to breathe on my own. For the last 7 years, I have not been able to eat, wash, go to the bathroom, or get dressed by myself. Some people are able to accept living with a severe disability. I am not one of them, and that is why I have a keen interest in research and am deeply disturbed by unreasonable attempts to block scientific progress. The fact that the House of Representatives banned cloning last year without careful deliberation makes the Senate debate a matter of great urgency.

A hero is an ordinary person doing things in an extra ordinary way.

"Neglect - even misstatement - of recent scientific data was also evident in last year's testimony before this subcommittee by the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. Mr. Reeve, on behalf of the Foundation, testified that adult stem cells are no substitute for embryonic cells because they cannot be "pluripotent" but are confined to a narrow range of specialization. Yet a few weeks after that hearing, researchers funded by the NIH and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation published a study indicating that adult bone marrow stem cells "may constitute an abundant and accessible cellular reservoir for the treatment of a variety of neurologic diseases." The first sentence of the published study states: "Pluripotent stem cells have been detected in multiple tissues in the adult, participating in normal replacement and repair, while undergoing self-renewal. The authors cite eleven other studies in support of this observation. Their article, prepared under the aegis of Mr. Reeve's foundation, was received for publication in March 2000, before Mr. Reeve testified in April that adult stem cells cannot be pluripotent.

When I met with the President in May of 1996, he stated that the ratio of research to clinical results is greater in this country than anywhere else in the world. Money spent on research brings practical results that absolutely justify the investment. Let's look at a few examples. NIH-sponsored research has resulted in the identification of genetic mutations that cause osteoporosis, Lou Gehrig's Disease, cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease. Effective treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) has been developed and today nearly 80 percent of children diagnosed with ALL are alive and disease-free after 5 years. Because of research, the nature of medicine is changing. We are approaching disease at the cellular level. We are targeting problems earlier, more specifically, less intrusively, with greater success and fewer side effects. Advances in genetics will soon let us intervene in disease before symptoms appear.

What I do is based on powers we all have inside us; the ability to endure; the ability to love, to carry on, to make the best of what we have — and you don’t have to be a ‘Superman’ to do it.

The budget of the National Institute of Health in 1998 was 12 billion dollars. However, due to Congress and also got pressure applied by a number of disease groups, the budget for fiscal 2003 will be 27.2 billion dollars. And human ... HHS Secretary Thompson has said there is plenty of money available for the kind of research. Doubling the budget of the NIH and more within five years has been an extraordinary accomplishment. So to say that there isn't ... I mean, more money would be nice, but to say there's not enough money to do research into therapeutic cloning is a false statement.