Quotes from John Elder Robison

child psychologists who said "John prefers to play by himself" were dead wrong. I played by myself because I was a failure at playing with others. I was alone as a result of my own limitations, and being alone was one of the bitterest disappointments of my young life.

Many parents have experienced this with their kids. They get referred for testing, and the first psychologist says the child has ADD. But then another round of tests with the next shrink points to PDD-NOS. More tests and more doctors take us back to ADHD, then Asperger's. They bounce from one diagnosis to another, never really knowing what to do or where they stand. In some cases, kids are given medications, and a medicine that's good for one thing can be bad for another.

Even at five, I was beginning to understand the world of things better than the world of people.

can certainly see someone's actions over a period of time, and I will come to care for that person in response to how he or she acts toward me.

It has always bothered me that many people, doctors included, tend to view anything that deviates from the typical as being abnormal or broken.

Individuals are labeled "different," "geeky," "abnormal," or even "Aspergian" or "autistic" at a young age. Among other things, these labels suggest that the people around them—their family, friends, teachers, and counselors—can't relate to their actions and expressions.

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

I felt like a fraud because I could not do anything in the normal way. I couldn't complete school. I couldn't "advance through the ranks." I couldn't "do it by the book." And I always ignored the rules.

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

His words made me wonder what else might be prewired in my brain. Did we have multiple personalities all wired up and ready to use, just as "emotional vision" was always latent in my mind, waiting for activation?

There are plenty of people in the world whose lives are governed by rote and routine. Such people will never be happy dealing with me, because I don't conform. Luckily, the world is also full of people who care about results, and those people are usually very happy with me,

When we discover and build upon our gifts it spurs positive feelings in us and those around us, and those feelings go a long way toward dissipating the burden of failure that many young Aspergians carry as kids.

believe that some kids who are in the middle to more high-functioning range of the autism continuum, like me, do not receive the proper stimulation and end up turning inward to such an extent that they can't function in society, even though they may be incredibly brilliant in some narrowly defined field, like abstract mathematics.

learning how to get along with other people is vital for our own success and happiness.

I had created a fantasy that seeing into people would be sweetness and love. Maybe there was some of that, but there was a lot more fear, and jealousy, and anger, and every bad thing I could imagine.

By the time I was twelve, I had progressed from "If he doesn't get better, he may have to be institutionalized" to "He's a weird, screwed-up kid.

That was the definition of management—getting others to do your work for you. And we were the others.

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.

I believe that some kids who are in the middle to more high-functioning range of the autism continuum, like me, do not receive the proper stimulation and end up turning inward to such an extent that they can't function in society, even though they may be incredibly brilliant in some narrowly defined field, like abstract mathematics.

like abstract mathematics. Scientists have studied "brain plasticity," the ability of the brain to reorganize neural pathways based on new experiences. It appears that different types of plasticity are dominant at different ages.

Had I not been drawn out by interested grown-ups, I might well have drifted farther into the world of autism. I might have ceased to communicate.

When characters got up and moved on their own I found it so unnerving that I would stop writing for days. Glue eventually held them down.

not wanting contact with others" or "preferring to play alone." I can't speak for other kids, but I'd like to be very clear about my own feelings: I did not ever want to be alone.

Frankly, I was shocked to hear they allowed KISS to play here. Usually, they have gospel performers in places like this. You know, Varmint, there are other religious communities like this scattered around the country. The Mennonites. The Amish. The Moonies. They would never host a KISS concert. Not in a million years. But times are changing. We could be playing for the Mormons soon. In Salt Lake City.