In special education, there's too much emphasis placed on the deficit and not enough on the strength.

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?

She was not granted the luxury of forgetting her lower middle-class existence where life hangs by an unseen thread to every hope and where every slash of disappointment shrinks the life further.

The Jew almost never marries a Christian woman; it is the Christian who marries a Jewess.

A penny saved is a penny to squander.

What the King dreams, the Hand builds.

Liberty is not just an idea, an abstract principle. It is power, effective power to do specific things. There is no such thing as liberty in general; liberty, so to speak, at large.

My swing is so bad I look like a caveman killing his lunch.

Silence is my weapon, silence is my shield.

I defy anyone - and I have said this to the Germans - to build a solid, articulated, and viable Europe without France's consent.

There is no humiliation more abusive than hunger.

I'd never planned on being a model.