If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic, I would not. Autism is part of what I am.

There needs to be a lot more emphasis on what a child CAN do, instead of what he cannot do.

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.

I am different, not less

The world needs different kinds of minds to work together.

The thing about being autistic is that you gradually get less and less autistic, because you keep learning, you keep learning how to behave. It's like being in a play; I'm always in a play.

If you have a 2 or 3 year old who is not talking, you must start an early intervention program. The worst thing you can do with an autistic 3 year old is to do nothing.

Nature is cruel but we don't have to be

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

I had people in my life who didn't give up on me: my mother, my aunt, my science teacher. I had one-on-one speech therapy. I had a nanny who spent all day playing turn-taking games with me.

People talk about curing autism. But if you got rid of all those traits, who's going to make the next computer?

Believe in yourself and be the source of joy in someone else's life.

...the Men Who Knew came out of the woodwork.

You don't change people's hearts by making them suffer. You harm yourself as well as them.

Writing is an incredibly creatively empowering experience for me. It is the place where nobody tries to control what I'm doing.

I don't ever really list things that I want to do. The only two things that I've ever wanted to do are be in a rock band and be a wrestler. Those were my two goals.

Art has such a transforming power. It can really take over your mind once you allow it to.

I'm not chic, I could never be chic.

Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.

We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.

We are not here for the sake of possessions, or of power. Or of happiness, but we are here to transfigure the divine out of human spirit.