Top 31 John Elder Robison Quotes
#1. Always keep this point in mind: the word "delay" means what it says: late. Delayed isn't never, no matter how much it may feel like that at age fifteen or even twenty-five.
John Elder Robison
#2. And my experience in the music scene had shown me that there were places for places in the world where misfits were welcome.
John Elder Robison
#3. When I act politely, I build a reserve of goodwill in others. That reserve allows those people to cut me some slack when I do something annoying.
John Elder Robison
#4. Girls are the trickiest and most unpredictable creatures a fellow like me will ever talk to.
John Elder Robison
#5. 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.
John Elder Robison
#6. It has always bothered me that many people, doctors included, tend to view anything that deviates from the typical as being abnormal or broken.
John Elder Robison
#7. Sociopath" and "psycho" were two of the most common field diagnoses for my look and expression. I heard it all the time: "I've read about people like you. They have no expression because they have no feeling. Some of the worst murderers in history were sociopaths.
John Elder Robison
#9. It must be my logical consideration of a decision many see as purely intuitive or emotional that throws other people for a loop.
John Elder Robison
#10. Saying you "have" something implies that it's temporary and undesirable. Asperger's isn't like that. You've been Aspergian as long as you can remember, and you'll be that way all your life. It's a way of being, not a disease.
John Elder Robison
#11. I was nice on the inside, but new acquaintances sometimes never stayed around long enough to notice,
John Elder Robison
#12. Asperger's is not a disease. It's a way of being. There is no cure, nor is there a need for one. There is, however, a need for knowledge and adaptation on the part of Aspergian kids and their families and friends.
John Elder Robison
#13. I knew I was some kind of misfit, but it was becoming apparent that some of the grown-ups who smiled sweetly and told me how terrible and fucked-up I was were complete fuckups themselves.
John Elder Robison
#14. The hard part was living the contrast between being rich and being broke. It was like being smart, and waking up one day to find yourself dumb as a rock, but able to remember your former brains.
John Elder Robison
#15. So is there a cure?' I asked.
'It's not a disease,' he explained. 'It doesn't need curing. It's just how you are
John Elder Robison
#17. We do not naturally care about people we don't know ... If we tried to feel sorry for every death, our little hearts would explode ... I don't have any physical reaction to the news. And there's no reason I should. I don't know them and the news has no effect on my life.
John Elder Robison
#18. 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.
John Elder Robison
#19. Learning how to get along with other people is vital for our own success and happiness.
John Elder Robison
#20. Unlike some older brothers, I never set him on fire, or cut off an arm or leg, or drowned him in the tub.
John Elder Robison
#21. (The only time making a fist around the fork helps is when you want to stab someone because he's stealing your food. Now I know stabbing people is really rude, so I hold my fork in the grown-up way all the time, and I rely on discreet snarls to protect my dinner from predators.)
John Elder Robison
#22. I am sure antidepressants, drugs, and liquor have their place. But so far, that place is in others, not me.
John Elder Robison
#23. That was the definition of management - getting others to do your work for you. And we were the others.
John Elder Robison
#24. I named him Poodle, beginning a long tradition of functional pet naming.
John Elder Robison
#25. A crying grown-up with no visible damage, who knew what that meant?
John Elder Robison
#26. Because speaking while watching things has always been difficult for me, learning to drive a car and talk at the same time was a tough one, but I mastered it.
John Elder Robison
#27. It does not matter what sixty-six percent of people do in any particular situation. All that matters is what you do.
John Elder Robison
#28. Building up a weakness just makes you less disabled. Building a strength can take you to the top of the world.
John Elder Robison
#29. And now I know it is perfectly natural for me not to look at someone when I talk. Those of us with Asperger's are just not comfortable doing it. In fact, I don'treally understand why it's considered normal to stare at someone's eyeballs.
John Elder Robison
#30. 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.
John Elder Robison
#31. Simply making myself aware of others has remarkably improved my social life. People accept me much faster now that I ignore them less.
John Elder Robison
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