Here is what some contemporary figures have said about their dyslexia and learning problems.

• George Burns, actor

  Quote: “For me the toughest thing about dyslexia was learning to spell it.”

• Steven J. Cannell, screenwriter and producer

  Quote: “Since I was the stupidest kid in my class, it never occurred to me to try and be perfect, so I've always been happy as a writer just to entertain myself.”

• Cher, singer and actress

  Quote: “I never read in school. I got really bad grades — D's and F's and C's in some classes, and A's and B's in other classes. In the second week of the eleventh grade, I just quit.”

• Agatha Christie, writer

  Quote: “I, myself, was always recognized…as the ‘slow one’ in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me…. I was…an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day.”

• Tom Cruise, actor

  Quote: “I had to train myself to focus my attention. I became very visual and learned how to create mental images in order to comprehend what I read.”

• Magic Johnson, athlete

  Quote: “The looks, the stares, the giggles…I wanted to show everybody that I could do better and also that I could read.”

• Keira Knightley, actress

  Quote: “When I was very little, kids called me stupid because I couldn't read….. the dyslexia didn't help, but it's amazing what a child calling you stupid would do to make you read pretty quickly.”

• Danny Glover, actor

  Quote: “Kids made fun of me because I was dark-skinned, had a wide nose, and was dyslexic. Even as an actor, it took me a long time to realize why words and letters got jumbled in my mind and came out differently.”

• Dr. John R. Horner, paleontologist

  Quote: “I barely made it through school. I read real slow. But I like to find things that nobody else has found, like a dinosaur egg that has an embryo inside. Well, there are 36 of them in the world, and I found 35.”

• Bruce Jenner, Olympic gold medalist

  Quote: “I just barely got through school. The problem was a learning disability, at a time when there was nowhere to get help.”

• Keanu Reeves, actor

  Quote: “Growing up, I had a lot of trouble reading, and so I wasn't a good student at all. Eventually I got fed up and I didn't bother to finish high school. I thought it was a waste of time — at least for me it was.”

• Nolan Ryan, athlete

  Quote: “When I had dyslexia, they didn't diagnose it as that. It was frustrating and embarrassing. I could tell you a lot of horror stories about what you feel like on the inside.”

• Nelson Rockefeller, former governor of New York and U.S. vice president

  Quote: “I was one of the ‘puzzle children’ myself — a dyslexic…And I still have a hard time reading today.”

• Charles Schwab, investment banker

  Quote: “I couldn't read. I just scraped by. My solution back then was to read classic comic books because I could figure them out from the context of the pictures. Now I listen to books on tape.”

• Jackie Stewart, international racecar driver

  Quote: “For a dyslexic who does not yet know they are dyslexic, life is like a big high wall you never think you will be able to climb or get over. The moment you understand there is something called dyslexia, and there are ways of getting around the problem, the whole world opens up.”

• Victor Villasenor, author

  Quote: “Once the fog lifts, dyslexics are prone to genius. Because theirs is such a unique way of looking at reality.”

• Roger Wilkins, Pulitzer Prize winner

  Quote: “My problem was reading very slowly. My parents said, ‘Take as long as you need. As long as you're going to read, just keep at it.’ We didn't know about learning disabilities back then.”

• Henry Winkler, actor

  Quote: “As a child, I was called stupid and lazy…. The great thing about a learning problem, is it forces you to become a problem solver.”

• Loretta Young, actress

  Quote: “I hated school…. One of the reasons was a learning disability, dyslexia, which no one understood at the time. I still can't spell.”