Social thinking skills must be directly taught to children and adults with ASD. Doing so opens doors of social understandings in all areas of life.

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?

The easiest way to be immortal is to stop thinking and the easiest way to stop thinking is to work hard physically! Remember, when you don’t think, you are immortal!

I'm thankful for my POLKADOTS!

I read the script of [Woman Under the Influence ] 50 times. And I thought about it. And then I did it.

Interesting capitalization,' I said. 'Yeah. I'm a big believer in random capitalization. The rules of capitalization are so unfair to words in the middle.

If you're happy with what you're doing, then you don't get bored.

A faith that is afraid of other people is no faith at all.

I was so glad I did Beauty and the Beast. I always wanted to act, and if the bankruptcy thing hadn't happened, I wouldn't have started acting.

The Chinese, whom it might be well to disparage less and imitate more, seem almost the only people among whom learning and merit have the ascendency, and wealth is not the standard of estimation.

Nations begin to dig their own graves when men talk more of human rights and less of human duties.

The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.