Autistic Author Quotes

“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.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Do not fear people with Autism, embrace them, Do not spite people with Autism unite them, Do not deny people with Autism accept them for then their abilities will shine”
― Paul Isaacs

“Q25 What's the reason you jump?
When I'm jumping it's as if my feelings are going upward to the sky. Really, my urge to be swallowed up by the sky is enough to make my heart quiver. When I'm jumping, I can feel my body parts really well, too--my bounding legs and my clapping hands--and that makes me feel so, so good.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“But I ask you, those of you who are with us all day, not to stress yourselves out because of us. When you do this, it feels as if you're denying any value at all that our lives may have--and that saps the spirit we need to soldier on. The hardest ordeal for us is the idea that we are causing grief for other people. We can put up with our own hardships okay, but the thought that our lives are the source of other people's unhappiness, that's plain unbearable.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Normal people think we're highly dependent and can't live without ongoing support, but in fact there are times when we're stoic heroes.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Many of the haters call me mental, which, by the way, is quite true, both metaphorically and clinically. It's true clinically because I am a person on the spectrum with OCD, and metaphorically, because I refuse to accept the sanity of unaccountability as the right way of civilized life. I am not going to glorify the issues of mental illness by saying that it's a super power or that it makes a person special. On the contrary, it makes things extremely difficult for a person.

But guess what! Indifference is far more dangerous than any mental illness. Because mental illness can be managed with treatment, but there is no treatment for indifference, there is no treatment for coldness, there is no treatment for apathy. So, let everyone hear it, and hear it well - in a world where indifference is deemed as sanity what's needed is a whole lot of mentalness, a whole lot of insanity, insanity for justice, insanity for equality, insanity for establishing the fundamental rights of life and living for each and every human being, no matter who they are, what they are, or where they are.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather

“for me and tens of thousands of others like me, a huge shock came when people started literally protesting because they wanted to “go back to normal.”
― Sol Smith

“Despite the fact that the world didn’t cater to its style, I saw advantages in my thinking.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“I’ve learned to only express my opinion when I absolutely have to, and even then, it comes out so direct, frustrated, and self-righteous that I’ll have to apologize for it within a week or so.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“Maybe the most surprising thing is that the proficiency of so many autism experts ends at diagnosis. Once that diagnosis is made, especially for adults, the expert’s job is over, and they have no idea how to guide you in handling that information.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“We did our best to fit in, be typical, or control the narrative, and kept this ruse up for years and then decades, usually developing some really unhealthy coping skills to deal with the resulting anxiety. Expectations were always high, and we worked harder and harder to meet them, exhausting ourselves and deteriorating our quality of life.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“The normal pipeline for an adult autistic is being overwhelmed, tired, then reaching burnout, depression, and guilt. But change is possible. These are systemic problems that we encounter, and the solutions we bring are going to be individual. Autistic people are wildly diverse, and what strengths you have won’t look like someone else’s.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“I want to make something clear: I’m autistic. I don’t have autism.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“autism is a description of who I am and who other autistics are and not at all an affliction that haunts us.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“Again, you’re most likely to be diagnosed if you’re a white male, as your opinion of yourself will be taken more seriously by doctors. I wish I were joking.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“They’ll explain why you can’t be autistic by producing the very evidence you would use to prove that you are — how smart you are, how social you are, your expert and intense eye contact, your terrific grades and amazing knowledge about niche subjects, your charm during social events. All things that were hard-fought parts of your masked identity.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“One of the most maddening things you’re going to hear is “Well, we’re all on the spectrum.” Usually, this will be someone close to you, and you’ll have just disclosed to them that you are autistic. Their reply takes this disclosure and — seemingly — integrates it into their worldview while actually dump- ing it in the garbage.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“After all, simply saying “We’re all on the spectrum” is a cognitive roadblock. It’s absolutely efficient, in an energy consumptive way. We see this method used all the time when people use thought-terminating clichés to end a problem-solving process and settle their thinking: It is what it is. Don’t rock the boat. That’s not how we do things here. It’s above your pay grade. Let’s agree to disagree. YOLO.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“As we move forward into different thinking styles, it’ll become more and more apparent why being understood and listened to is especially enticing to autistic people who are coming to an awareness of themselves.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“We should also address this term neurotypical, as it is too often used as a substitute for the word normal, even though this was not the original intention. Simply stated, it refers to someone whose neurological structure developed in a way that is typical of the field of study.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“These other people have diverged from our expectations of neurological development, and from this we get the term neurodivergent. But this is a broad label that is not synonymous with autistic, the way that rectangle is descriptive of but not synonymous with square.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“If coming out as autistic as an adult is hard, it’s only because of the resistance of those around you. It doesn’t change the actual challenges you have in your job, your relationships, or your perception. Which is just such a perfect fact because the challenges you’ve always faced haven’t been due to the autism either — not really. They’ve been due to the way the world has been structured based on neurotypical thinking and socialization. In most cases, autism is a social disability, not a medical one.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“For how much autism is discussed, far too many people don’t have a good working definition of what it is.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“People used to think the brain’s primary function was to take in the world around us and perceive stimuli. While that’s something it does, the brain spends a lot more energy filtering stimuli out, allowing us to discern the important ones from the unimportant ones.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“It’s a common quality of autistic thinking that we aren’t sure which details are considered necessary by others when making a point or telling a story. What’s funny about that — and we will dig into this later — is the certainty that the reader or listener has a better idea of what these details are than the person doing the explaining and that it just so happens that the correlation between the included details and the patience of the listener is one to one. This raises no red flags at all. It just “is what it is.” This makes sense because their attention has to be engaged — but it also seems unfair.”
― Sol Smith, The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult

“For years, I rejected the fact that I was autistic, fearing it made somehow less than others.”
― Luke Campbell, The Neurospicy Guide for Beginners: The Tiny Introduction to Neurodiversity

“Neurodiversity represents the idea that neurological differences, like autism or ADHD, are natural variations in the human experience.”
― Luke Campbell, The Neurospicy Guide for Beginners: The Tiny Introduction to Neurodiversity

“Even as an adult, I sometimes find myself at a loss of words, as though my mind freezes. It can leave me feeling stuck and even a bit helpless - not ideal for someone who already grapples with imposter syndrome.”
― Luke Campbell, The Neurospicy Guide for Beginners: The Tiny Introduction to Neurodiversity

“If we don't laugh at a joke, it doesn't necessarily mean we didn't get it - maybe it just wasn't funny.”
― Luke Campbell, The Neurospicy Guide for Beginners: The Tiny Introduction to Neurodiversity

“Many trans and non-binary people are significantly more likely to experience invalidation of their experiences, both in their autistic and queer identities.”
― Luke Campbell