Top 100 Quotes About Temple Grandin
#1. In every character that you play ... I mean, I don't think I'll ever be the type of actor or performer per se who transforms, you know? Like Claire Danes transforms into Temple Grandin - I'm not gonna do that.
Ilana Glazer
#2. There was a solid year and a half, perhaps two years, after making 'Temple Grandin,' when I didn't do anything. I just didn't have much patience for roles that were silly, or light, or inconsequential.
Claire Danes
#5. Many autistic children like to smell things, and smell may provide more reliable information about their surroundings than either vision or hearing.
Temple Grandin
#6. There's a saying in engineering: You can build things cheap, fast, or right, but not all three.
Temple Grandin
#7. People need to learn how to work, learn how to support themselves. I think it's just fine to be eccentric.
Temple Grandin
#8. People can live up to high standards, but they can't live up to perfection.
Temple Grandin
#9. In fact, there are autism clusters, you know, around some of the big tech centers. You take two socially awkward computer programmers and put them together, that can kind of concentrate the autistic genes.
Temple Grandin
#10. What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool?
You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.
Temple Grandin
#11. I think that the definition of autism is too broad. You got to remember, autism definition is a behavioral profiling.
Temple Grandin
#13. In the 50s and 60s, kids were taught how to shake hands. They were taught how to have manners. There needs to be a lot more of that kind of stuff because the autistic mind doesn't pick up social things and subtle cues.
Temple Grandin
#14. 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.'
Temple Grandin
#15. Autism's an important part of who I am, but I'm a college professor and an animal scientist first. And I wouldn't want to change 'cause I like the logical way I think.
Temple Grandin
#16. Steve Jobs was probably mildly on the autistic spectrum. Basically, you've probably known people who were geeky and socially awkward but very smart. When does geeks and nerds become autism? That's a gray area. Half the people in Silicon Valley probably have autism.
Temple Grandin
#17. In my opinion, one of the greatest animal-welfare problems is the physical abuse of livestock during transportation ... Typical abuses I have witnessed with alarming frequency are; hitting, beating, use of badly maintained trucks, jabbing of short objects into animals, and deliberate cruelty.
Temple Grandin
#18. I think that autistic brains tend to be specialized brains. Autistic people tend to be less social. It takes a ton of processor space in the brain to have all the social circuits.
Temple Grandin
#19. Some autistic children cannot stand the sound of certain voices. I have come across cases where teachers tell me that certain children have problems with their voice or another person's voice. This problem tends to be related to high-pitched ladies' voices.
Temple Grandin
#20. I'm a visual thinker, not a language-based thinker. My brain is like Google Images.
Temple Grandin
#21. These diagnostic profiles like depression, ADHD, autism, dyslexia, it's half science and the other half is a committee of doctors bickering over what it should be, and it has changed. It's not precise like a diagnosis of tuberculosis would be very precise.
Temple Grandin
#22. My thinking pattern always starts with specifics and works toward generalization in an associational and nonsequential way.
Temple Grandin
#23. Half of Silicon Valley's got a little bit of autism.
Temple Grandin
#24. My life - autism's an important part of it, but it bothers me when I see kids where autism and their autism is the only thing they think about. I'd rather have them think about, you know, some art work they were gonna do or some science they wanted to do.
Temple Grandin
#25. The people that were socially awkward from my generation, they all had paper routes and that taught them the discipline of work.
Temple Grandin
#27. People on the autistic spectrum tend to get fixated on what they think.
Temple Grandin
#28. There tends to be a lot of autism around the tech centers ... when you concentrate the geeks, you're concentrating the autism genetics.
Temple Grandin
#29. I'm seeing too many kids where they get fixated on their own autism. I'd rather have them get fixated that they like programming computers or they like art or they want to sing in the church choir or they want to train dogs, you know, something that they can turn into a career.
Temple Grandin
#30. There is a tremendous range of children with a PDD label.
Temple Grandin
#31. My problems are sort of more on a nuisance level. I can't stand scratchy clothes, I've got to have soft kinds of cotton against my skin, and I don't know why some 100% cotton t-shirts itch and others don't; it has something to do with the weave.
Temple Grandin
#32. 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.
Temple Grandin
#33. It is never too late to expand the mind of a person on the autism spectrum.
Temple Grandin
#34. I think a brain can be made "more thinking" or made "more emotional." At what point does this become abnormal? Autism in its milder variants, I think, is part of normal human variation.
Temple Grandin
#35. I've worked with tons of people that I know who are on the spectrum - but now I think severe autism has really increased.
Temple Grandin
#36. The squeeze machine is not going to cure anybody, but it may help them relax; and a relaxed person will usually have better behavior.
Temple Grandin
#37. 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.
Temple Grandin
#38. Some children may need a behavioral approach, whereas other children may need a sensory approach.
Temple Grandin
#39. You can't punish a child who is acting out because of sensory overload.
Temple Grandin
#40. Intense stereotypies - stereotypies an animal spends hours a day doing - almost never occur in the wild,
Temple Grandin
#41. The world needs different kinds of minds to work together.
Temple Grandin
#42. You simply cannot tell other people they are stupid, even if they really are stupid.
Temple Grandin
#43. People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will totally change everything. There is no single magic bullet.
Temple Grandin
#46. My mind sort of works like a search engine. You ask me something, and I start seeing pictures.
Temple Grandin
#47. Social thinking skills must be directly taught to children and adults with ASD. Doing so opens doors of social understandings in all areas of life.
Temple Grandin
#49. One big question that's come up is: Has autism increased on the mild side of things? I don't think so - they've always been here. Some of this is increased detection.
Temple Grandin
#51. There's a point where anecdotal evidence becomes truth
Temple Grandin
#52. You have got to keep autistic children engaged with the world. You cannot let them tune out.
Temple Grandin
#53. Children between the ages of five to ten years are even more variable. They are going to vary from very high functioning, capable of doing normal school work, to nonverbal who have all kinds of neurological problems.
Temple Grandin
#54. It's much more work for the mother of an autistic child to have a job, because working with an autistic child is such a hassle until they go to school.
Temple Grandin
#55. I had people in my life who didn't give up on me: my mother, my aunt, my science teacher. I had one-on-one speech therapy. I had a nanny who spent all day playing turn-taking games with me.
Temple Grandin
#56. Kanner had cause and effect backward. The child wasn't behaving in a psychically isolated or physically destructive manner because the parents were emotionally distant. Instead, the
Temple Grandin
#57. I use my mind to solve problems and invent things.
Temple Grandin
#58. One of the big areas I'd like to see a lot more research done on is the sensory problems, and it's real variable. One kid's got sound sensitivity; another one can't tolerate fluorescent lights. I can't stand scratchy clothes.
Temple Grandin
#59. Miles a day, which is illegal in most towns. Even if it's not illegal, it's dangerous. So you have to figure out substitute behaviors that keep your dog happy
Temple Grandin
#60. I strongly recommend that students with autism get involved in special interest clubs in some of the areas they naturally excel at. Being with people who share your interests makes socializing easier.
Temple Grandin
#61. If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic, I would not. Autism is part of what I am.
Temple Grandin
#62. The thing about being autistic is that you gradually get less and less autistic, because you keep learning, you keep learning how to behave. It's like being in a play; I'm always in a play.
Temple Grandin
#63. Who do you think made the first stone spears? The Asperger guy. If you were to get rid of all the autism genetics, there would be no more Silicon Valley.
Temple Grandin
#64. I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.
Temple Grandin
#65. In a noisy place I can't understand speech, because I cannot screen out the background noise.
Temple Grandin
#66. I'm seeing too many smart kind of socially awkward kids, a lot milder than I was, not getting employment because they're not learning job skills.
Temple Grandin
#67. One of the places where research is needed is all the sensory problems. And you get sensory problems not just with autism, but with dyslexia, learning problems, ADHD, attention deficit, you know, things like sound sensitivity, problems with fluorescent lighting.
Temple Grandin
#68. If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the Earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave.
Temple Grandin
#69. I can explain how a person with autism thinks. I am very, very interested in how people think. It's been a gradual process of learning more and more about how my thinking process is different. You know it's bottom up - you take specific examples to make concepts and then I put them in categories.
Temple Grandin
#71. I've always thought of myself as a cattle-handling specialist, a college professor first; autism is secondary.
Temple Grandin
#72. I don't want my thoughts to die with me, I want to have done something. I'm not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution - know that my life has meaning.
Temple Grandin
#73. When you're a weird geek, the way to sell yourself is to show your skills.
Temple Grandin
#75. I'd rather see a kid get fixated on something they can turn into a career.
Temple Grandin
#76. Autistic children are very difficult to take care of, especially severely autistic ones. When I was 4, I had almost no language; when I was 3, I had none at all.
Temple Grandin
#77. People wouldn't have become who we are today if we hadn't coevolved with dogs.
Temple Grandin
#79. I'd rather have a kid come up to me and tell me that he loves dinosaurs or he loves airplanes or he likes training dogs or I like Shakespeare. I mean, just something.
Temple Grandin
#80. I tend to be much more in the present and my emotions are simpler. I can be happy, I can be sad, I can be depressed, but there's a complexity that I don't have. I don't brood the same way. Fear is my main emotion.
Temple Grandin
#81. Children who are visual thinkers will often be good at drawing, other arts, and building things with building toys such as Legos.
Temple Grandin
#82. I obtain great satisfaction out of using my intellect.
Temple Grandin
#83. I would not be here now if I did not have anti-depressants.
Temple Grandin
#84. I was so afraid to go out west to my aunt's ranch. But the only choice my mother gave me was to go for two weeks or all summer. I wound up staying all summer. And that's where I learned about cattle. I could relate to their behavior, their fears.
Temple Grandin
#85. Some people with autism who don't talk, all they hear are vowel sounds. Like if I said 'cup,' they might just hear 'uh.'
Temple Grandin
#86. My Advice is: You always have to keep persevering.
Temple Grandin
#88. One of the things I want to do is be a decent role model. I've got a lot of emails and stuff from children. They look up to me. Kids get different labels and things like that and I want those kids to succeed.
Temple Grandin
#89. What I've tried to do is combine both my personal experiences with scientific research. I like to cross the divide between the personal world and the scientific world.
Temple Grandin
#90. Seeking is a combination of emotions people usually think of as being different: wanting something really good, looking forward to getting something really good and curiosity. Seeking gives you the energy to go after your goals.
Temple Grandin
#91. We have got to work on keeping these children engaged with the world.
Temple Grandin
#92. I'm seeing too many geeky, nerdy kids get addicted to video games and they're going nowhere. It's making me crazy.
Temple Grandin
#93. What do I do when I go home? Work. That's basically my social life. I'm married to work.
Temple Grandin
#94. There needs to be a lot more emphasis on what a child CAN do, instead of what he cannot do.
Temple Grandin
#95. I think the core criterion is the social awkwardness, but the sensory issues are a serious problem in many, many cases of autism, and they make it impossible to operate in the environment where you're supposed to be social.
Temple Grandin
#96. Medication should never be considered the only tool for helping a person.
Temple Grandin
#97. When I was younger, I was looking for this magic meaning of life.
Temple Grandin
#98. If I did not have my work, I would not have any life.
Temple Grandin
#99. If you have autism in the family history, you still vaccinate. Delay it a bit, space them out.
Temple Grandin
#100. And while we are on the subject of medication you always need to look at risk versus benefit.
Temple Grandin
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