Autism Spectrum Quotes

“Ought one to surrender to authority even if one believed that that authority was wrong? If the answer was yes, then I knew that I would always be wrong, because I could never do it. Then how could one live in a world in which one's mind and perceptions meant nothing and authority and tradition meant everything? There were no answers.”
― Richard Wright, Black Boy

“The normal pipeline for an adult autistic is being overwhelmed, tired, then reaching burnout, depression, and guilt. But change is possible. These are systemic problems that we encounter, and the solutions we bring are going to be individual. Autistic people are wildly diverse, and what strengths you have won’t look like someone else’s.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“In these days, doctors know little about autism. They blame it on distant parents who don't communicate enough with their children”
― Pénélope Bagieu, Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World

“They’ll explain why you can’t be autistic by producing the very evidence you would use to prove that you are — how smart you are, how social you are, your expert and intense eye contact, your terrific grades and amazing knowledge about niche subjects, your charm during social events. All things that were hard-fought parts of your masked identity.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“If coming out as autistic as an adult is hard, it’s only because of the resistance of those around you. It doesn’t change the actual challenges you have in your job, your relationships, or your perception. Which is just such a perfect fact because the challenges you’ve always faced haven’t been due to the autism either — not really. They’ve been due to the way the world has been structured based on neurotypical thinking and socialization. In most cases, autism is a social disability, not a medical one.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“-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: A Positive Psychology Approach

“After all, simply saying “We’re all on the spectrum” is a cognitive roadblock. It’s absolutely efficient, in an energy consumptive way. We see this method used all the time when people use thought-terminating clichés to end a problem-solving process and settle their thinking: It is what it is. Don’t rock the boat. That’s not how we do things here. It’s above your pay grade. Let’s agree to disagree. YOLO.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“We should also address this term neurotypical, as it is too often used as a substitute for the word normal, even though this was not the original intention. Simply stated, it refers to someone whose neurological structure developed in a way that is typical of the field of study.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“For how much autism is discussed, far too many people don’t have a good working definition of what it is.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“I want to make something clear: I’m autistic. I don’t have autism.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“autism is a description of who I am and who other autistics are and not at all an affliction that haunts us.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“Again, you’re most likely to be diagnosed if you’re a white male, as your opinion of yourself will be taken more seriously by doctors. I wish I were joking.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“One of the most maddening things you’re going to hear is “Well, we’re all on the spectrum.” Usually, this will be someone close to you, and you’ll have just disclosed to them that you are autistic. Their reply takes this disclosure and — seemingly — integrates it into their worldview while actually dump- ing it in the garbage.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“As we move forward into different thinking styles, it’ll become more and more apparent why being understood and listened to is especially enticing to autistic people who are coming to an awareness of themselves.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“These other people have diverged from our expectations of neurological development, and from this we get the term neurodivergent. But this is a broad label that is not synonymous with autistic, the way that rectangle is descriptive of but not synonymous with square.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“People used to think the brain’s primary function was to take in the world around us and perceive stimuli. While that’s something it does, the brain spends a lot more energy filtering stimuli out, allowing us to discern the important ones from the unimportant ones.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“It’s a common quality of autistic thinking that we aren’t sure which details are considered necessary by others when making a point or telling a story. What’s funny about that — and we will dig into this later — is the certainty that the reader or listener has a better idea of what these details are than the person doing the explaining and that it just so happens that the correlation between the included details and the patience of the listener is one to one. This raises no red flags at all. It just “is what it is.” This makes sense because their attention has to be engaged — but it also seems unfair.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“Most days, I feel like I’m doing my best attempt at impersonating a normal human being.
Results vary.”
― Todd Lyons, You Tried: A Deadbeat’s Guide to Self-Actualization

“Autistic children don’t need fixing—they need understanding. Their minds aren’t broken, just beautifully different”
― medicosaurabh

“Everyone is not a little autistic. A wide range of individuals experience common aspects of the phenomena autistics endure, but this makes them autistic in the same way wearing makeup makes someone a Van Gogh painting.”
― Peri Q. Arden, Dandelion Ch;ld: An Autistic Life Shattered and Reforged

“Autism is not a disease to be cured, autism is normal, a different kind of normal, but normal no less, and with a modest amount of care the acclimation feels less challenging.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Quand je me tanne de compter toutes les façons dont on va collectivement crever, je m'attarde après le souper pour observer les joueurs d'échecs.”
― Michèle Laframboise, Rose du désert

“Ma mémoire est comme un de ces grillages qui tamisent le minerai. Les gros cailloux restent, mais le sable et l'eau passent à travers les mailles.”
― Michèle Laframboise, Rose du désert

“The Healing Way is a map to transform your understanding of you and your child on a soul level and embark on a new journey to enjoy life and love more.”
― Kristen O'Meara, THE HEALING WAY: What I Have Learned from Raising a Son on the Autism Spectrum That Transformed My Grief into Awareness, Empowerment, and a Relationship with the Divine

“It wasn’t that his senses were broken. They were simply dialed to a volume the world wasn’t built for.”
― Jolanta Kigele, They Don’t See Me: A Mother’s Memoir of Autism

“You don’t have to fix everything. All you need is to stay alive, and to be present.”
― Jolanta Kigele, They Don’t See Me: A Mother’s Memoir of Autism

“Trust is not rebuilt with a single apology. It returns inch by inch, strand by strand.”
― Jolanta Kigele, They Don’t See Me: A Mother’s Memoir of Autism

“And I am still learning to love my child the way he needs to be loved—not the way it’s most convenient for me.”
― Jolanta Kigele, They Don’t See Me: A Mother’s Memoir of Autism

“I see your child, whose world experiences a seismic shift at the slightest change.”
― Jolanta Kigele, They Don’t See Me: A Mother’s Memoir of Autism

“There is no manual for raising special needs children, and we all make mistakes. But our mistakes are exactly what teach us to feel deeper and see clearer.”
― Jolanta Kigele, They Don’t See Me: A Mother’s Memoir of Autism