Aspergers Quotes

“What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool?

You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.”
― Temple Grandin, The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's

“On the other hand, I think cats have Asperger's. Like me, they're very smart. And like me, sometimes they simply need to be left alone.”
― Jodi Picoult, House Rules

“I think you're the only person who gets me. When I'm with you, the world doesn't feel like a problem I can't figure out. Please come to the dance, because you're my music.”
― Jodi Picoult, House Rules

“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.--Ray Bradbury”
― T.K. Thorne

“And now I know it is perfectly natural for me not to look at someone when I talk. Those of us with Asperger's are just not comfortable doing it. In fact, I don'treally understand why it's considered normal to stare at someone's eyeballs.”
― John Elder Robison

“I know Mark,' I reply. 'And I don't like him.'
'But I do. And part of being social means being civil to someone you don't like.'
'That's stupid. It's a huge world. why not just get up and walk away?'
'Because that's rude,' Jess explains.
'I think it's rude to stick a smile on your face and pretend you like talking to someone when in reality you'd rather be sticking bamboo slivers under your fingernails.”
― Jodi Picoult, House Rules

“Females with ASDs often develop ‘coping mechanisms’ that can cover up the intrinsic difficulties they experience. They may mimic their peers, watch from the sidelines, use their intellect to figure out the best ways to remain undetected, and they will study, practice, and learn appropriate approaches to social situations. Sounds easy enough, but in fact these strategies take a lot of work and can more often than not lead to exhaustion, withdrawal, anxiety, selective mutism, and depression. -Dr. Shana Nichols”
― Liane Holliday Willey, Safety Skills for Asperger Women: How to Save a Perfectly Good Female Life

“I don't understand why people never say what they mean. It's like the immigrants who come to a country and learn the language but are completely baffled by idioms. (Seriously, how could anyone who isn't a native English speaker 'get the picture,' so to speak, and not assume it has something to do with a photo or a painting?)”
― Jodi Picoult, House Rules

“He was asking too many questions and he was asking them too quickly. They were stacking up in my head like loaves in the factory where Uncle Terry works. The factory is a bakery and he operates the slicing machines. And sometimes a slicer is not working fast enough but the bread keeps coming and there is a blockage. I sometimes think of my mind as a machine, but not always as a bread-slicing machine. It makes it easier to explain to other people what is going on inside it.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“When the anger is intense, the person with Asperger's syndrome may be in a 'blind rage' and unable to see the signals indicating that it would be appropriate to stop. Feelings of anger can also be in response in situations where we would expect other emotions. I have noted that sadness may be expressed as anger.”
― Tony Attwood

“I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that Father calls groaning. I make this noise when there is too much information coming into my head from the outside world. It is like when you are upset and you hold the radio against your ear and you tune it halfway between two stations so that all you get is white noise and then you turn the volume right up so that this is all can hear and then you know you are safe because you cannot hear anything else”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“I've met so many parents of the kids who are on the low end of the autism spectrum, kids who are diametrically opposed to Jacob, with his Asperger's. They tell me I'm lucky to have a son who's verbal, who is blisteringly intelligent, who can take apart the broken microwave and have it working again an hour later. They think there is no greater hell than having a son who is locked in his own world, unaware that there's a wider one to explore. But try having a son who is locked in his own world and still wants to make a connection. A son who tries to be like everyone else but truly doesn't know how.”
― Jodi Picoult, House Rules

“There's nothing more debilitating about a disability than the way people treat you over it.”
― Solange nicole

“Jacob looks like a totally normal young man. He's clearly intelligent. But having his day disrupted probably makes him feel the same way I would if I was suddenly told to bungee off the top of the Sears Tower.”
― Jodi Picoult, House Rules

“He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.”
― Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Hegemon

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
― Tim Page, Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger's

“We do not naturally care about people we don't know... If we tried to feel sorry for every death, our little hearts would explode... I don't have any physical reaction to the news. And there's no reason I should. I don't know them and the news has no effect on my life.”
― John Elder Robison

“Far too many people on the spectrum spend most of their days with people who carry around memories of, and are often too overwhelmed by incidents of, prior misinterpretation. This is no fun. In travel you can start over, and reinvent yourself. If somehow a relationship gets weird, you can leave and go to the next town, the next block, or whatever the case may be, and try again.”
― Michael John Carley, Asperger's From the Inside Out: A Supportive and Practical Guide for Anyone with Asperger's Syndrome

“The jury is supposed to be twelve peers, but technically that would mean every single person on the jury should have Asperger's syndrome, because then they'd really understand me.”
― Jodi Picoult, House Rules

“Traveling in other countries is especially fun because others often attribute your differences to the less-stigmatizing idea that you're like this only because you're a foreigner.”
― Michael John Carley, Asperger's From the Inside Out: A Supportive and Practical Guide for Anyone with Asperger's Syndrome

“Stupid English."

"English isn't stupid," I say.

"Well, my English teacher is." He makes a face. "Mr. Franklin assigned an essay about our favorite subject, and I wanted to write about lunch, but he won't let me."

"Why not?"

"He says lunch isn't a subject."

I glance at him. "It isn't."

"Well," Jacob says, "it's not a predicate, either. Shouldn't he know that?”
― Jodi Picoult

“Can you tell me what it means to waive your rights?"

I hold my breath as Jacob hesitates. And then slowly, beautifully, the right fist he's been banging against the wooden railing unfurls and is raised over his head, moving back and forth like a metronome.”
― Jodi Picoult

“-autism is neither a deficit, disease nor disorder, but simply a different, and equally valid, way of being.”
― Victoria Honeybourne, A Practical Guide to Happiness in Adults on the Autism Spectrum

“More knowledge makes me act more normal”
― Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism

“– but what exactly do we mean by happiness? Is happiness a short-term state (‘I’m happy when I’m playing tennis’) or a longer-term condition (‘I’m a happy person’)? The very thing that makes one person extremely happy (going to a football match, reading a book, being alone...) might indeed induce a state of extreme unhappiness in another. But happiness, however defined, is something generally considered a positive state worth cultivating.”
― Victoria Honeybourne, A Practical Guide to Happiness in Adults on the Autism Spectrum

“-success does not bring long-term happiness, but that being happy can increase the likelihood of success.”
― Victoria Honeybourne, A Practical Guide to Happiness in Adults on the Autism Spectrum

“What we need beyond awareness is action, training, resources.”
― Charlotte Amelia Poe

“But for the outcasts like me, the ones who don't fit the box, the only words that remind me I'm human are my own.”
― Heather Day Gilbert, Queen of Hearts

“When you have a defect, some people try not to see it only as a defect, but as your entire identity.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Stamerenophobia

“It is easy to speak, but not very easy when you can't speak easily.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Stamerenophobia