58 Quotes by Naoki Higashida

Just by looking at nature, I feel as if I'm being swallowed up into it, and in that moment I get the sensation that my body's now a speck, a speck from long before I was born, a speck that is melting into nature herself.

Happiness that comes at someone else's expense isn't happiness - especially if that someone else is precious to you.

There are times when all goes well, when I compose a sentence and stand back just to enjoy it. This sensation is like admiring a tall building I've designed. With luck, the building has no wasteful elements and every detail is noted and works. It blends in with the surrounding scenery and looks as if it was always meant to be here. These are the buildings I aim to construct.

When you see an object, it seems that you see it as an entire thing first, and only afterwards do its details follow on. But for people with autism, the details jump straight out at us first of all, and then only gradually, detail by detail, does the whole image float up into focus.

When there’s a gap between what I’m thinking and what I’m saying, it’s because the words coming out of my mouth are the only ones I can access at that time.

...and even now I still can't "do" a real conversation. I have no problem reading books aloud and singing, but as soon as I try to speak with someone, my words just vanish.

For us, time is as difficult to grasp as picturing a country we've never been to. You can't capture the passing of time on a piece of paper. The hands of a clock may show that some time has passed, but the fact that we can't actually feel it makes us nervous.

More generally, for a person with autism, being touched by someone else means that the toucher is exercising control over the person’s body, which not even its owner can control properly. It’s as if we lose who we are. Think about it—that’s terrifying!

You can’t always tell just by looking at people with autism, but we never really feel that our bodies are our own. They’re always acting up and going outside our control. Stuck inside them, we’re struggling to make them do what we tell them.