Quotes from Temple Grandin

If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic, I would not. Autism is part of what I am.

You simply cannot tell other people they are stupid, even if they really are stupid.

In an ideal world the scientist should find a method to prevent the most severe forms of autism but allow the milder forms to survive. After all, the really social people did not invent the first stone spear. It was probably invented by an Aspie who chipped away at rocks while the other people socialized around the campfire. Without autism traits we might still be living in caves.

But my favorite of Einstein's words on religion is "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." I like this because both science and religion are needed to answer life's great questions.

I believe there is a reason such as autism, severe manic-depression, and schizophrenia remain in our gene pool even though there is much suffering as a result.

The worst thing you can do is nothing. (re: teaching children with autism)

I've always thought of myself as a cattle-handling specialist, a college professor first; autism is secondary.

Mild autism can give you a genius like Einstein. If you have severe autism, you could remain nonverbal. You don't want people to be on the severe end of the spectrum. But if you got rid of all the autism genetics, you wouldn't have science or art. All you would have is a bunch of social 'yak yaks.'

I had problems getting my words out. If people spoke directly to me, I understood what they said. But when the grownups got to yakking really fast by themselves, it just sounded like 'oi oi.' I thought grownups had a separate language. I've now figured out I was not hearing the hard consonant sounds.

The squeeze machine is not going to cure anybody, but it may help them relax; and a relaxed person will usually have better behavior.

T]he only place on earth where immortality is provided is in libraries. This is the collective memory of humanity.

Animals make us Human.

Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.

There's a saying in engineering: You can build things cheap, fast, or right, but not all three.

I believe that the place where an animal dies is a sacred one. There is a need to bring ritual into the conventional slaughter plants and use as a means to shape people's behavior. It would help prevent people from becoming numbed, callous, or cruel. The ritual could be something very simple, such as a moment of silence. In addition to developing better designs and making equipment to insure the humane treatments of all animals, that would be my contribution.

The world needs all types of minds.

If language naturally evolves to serve the needs of tiny rodents with tiny rodent brains, then what's unique about language isn't the brilliant humans who invented it to communicate high-level abstract thoughts. What's unique about language is that the creatures who develop it are highly vulnerable to being eaten.

The big companies are like steel and activists are like heat. Activists soften the steel, and then I can bend it into pretty grillwork and make reforms.

We raise them for us; that means we owe them some respect. nature is creul but we dont have to be. I wouldnt want to have my guts ripped out by a lion. I'd much rather die in a slaughter house if it were done right.

My mind can always separate the two. Even when I am very upset, I keep reviewing the facts over and over until I can come to a logical conclusion.

The word "autism" still conveys a fixed and dreadful meaning to most people—they visualize a child mute, rocking, screaming, inaccessible, cut off from human contact. And we almost always speak of autistic children, never of autistic adults, as if such children never grew up, or were somehow mysteriously spirited off the planet, out of society.

Animals like novelty if they can choose to investigate it; they fear novelty if you shove it in their faces.

DIFFERENT NOT LESS

Sometimes you have to go outside your field of study to find the right people.