46 Quotes by John Elder Robison

I am sure antidepressants, drugs, and liquor have their place. But so far, that place is in others, not me.

First, he taught me how to walk. Then, armed with sticks and dead snakes, he chased me and I learned how to run.

As I’ve gotten older, I have taught myself to act “normal.” I can do it well enough to fool the average person for a whole evening, maybe longer. But it all falls apart if I hear something that elicits a strong emotional reaction from me that is different from what people expect. In an instant, in their eyes, I turn into the sociopathic killer I was believed to be forty years ago.

I don’t want to be a genius or a freak or something on display. I wish for empathy and compassion from those around me, and I appreciate sincerity, clarity, and logicality in other people. I believe most people – autistic or not – share this wish. And now, with my newfound insight, I’m on the way to achieving that goal. I hope you’ll keep those thoughts in mind the next time you meet someone who looks or acts a little strange.

It was the first place where I was thrown together with children I didn’t know. It didn’t go well.

As a logical thinker, I cannot help thinking, based on the evidence, that many people who exhibit dramatic reactions to bad news involving strangers are hypocrites.

Law-abiding citizens and people with good political connections stand their ground.

I was so used to living inside my own world that I answered with whatever I had been thinking. If.

As a logical thinker, I cannot help thinking, based on the evidence, that many people who exhibit dramatic reactions to bad news involving strangers are hypocrites. That troubles me. People like that hear bad news from across the world, and they burst into wails and tears as though their own children have just been run over by a bus. To me, they don’t seem very different from actors and actresses – they are able to burst into tears on command, but does it really mean anything?